


Alliance

by ACosmonaut



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4645779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACosmonaut/pseuds/ACosmonaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humanity is desperate, the Last City needs to find an allie willing to fight alongside the guardians. But, are the guardians willing to fight alongside an unconventional allie?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**ALLIANCE  
**

How long ago it was? Ten years, maybe more? Traveler, it's hard to tell when you keep dying and coming back to life, sometimes you even forget your name, or even why you came back to life.

Or why you started fighting and keep fighting.

The Traveler gives us power through our Ghost who keep us alive and revives us every time we die, we could technically live forever, if our life wasn't so dangerous and they so… fragile; I mean, they seem made of plastic! You can crush them with a well placed fist, if they weren't so elusive, and you, killed. Permanently.

But, who are we? Came on! It's not a Pop Quiz and we aren't that secretive! We are Guardians, wielders of the Light the Traveler gifted us to protect what remains of humanity and, well, itself? We are capable of great things, even if sometimes we tell tall tales of everything we do, and we like to share our adventures among fellow comrades—to hear who tell the biggest nonsense—or with 'normal people' who are looking for something to distract themselves with during these dark times.

And, yeah, they are very dark. Since that floating, white beach ball arrived everything changed: first, technological progress, the life was better, we were able to travel from planet to planet in this system like you can go to the gunsmith and ask 'Can you give me 20 heavy syntheses that I have to make Crota kneel?'. It was our Golden Age. But everything has an end, and so our civilization: in less than a century, we lost everything. Every major city, entire planets, every technology, every hope.

During our Age, there were numerous novels, movies, games featuring invaders who tried to claim Earth as theirs, but during the Collapse those fantasies became real.

The Hive, Cabal forces, Fallen scavengers, time traveler Vex – can I call them aliens? They are robots, but, still—they took everything from us, slaughtered us and made us flee beyond the Asteroid Belt or cornered inside the bastions of The Last City of Earth.

This is the long story short of what happened to humanity, a prequel to what happened much before a rater odd story I heard, so, sit tight and listen.

As I told before, I don't remember how long ago the events of this tale took place, but I remember where and most importantly who the protagonists were.

* * *

A small fire team of three Guardians was sent to India, near New Delhi, to retrieve valuable data from the university; from what the Warlock Vanguard had told them, the facility held information about some kind of Golden Age technology, blueprints and data of starships models the Dead Orbit needed to 'start a new life for humanity' outside the Wall's. It was hot, with the sun shining high above what once was one of the biggest cities on Earth; the streets had became meadows of green grass and plants by the large leaves, rusted and abandoned cars at every corner, the derelict skyscrapers and buildings wrapped in vines an tree roots.

Where once human citizens lived, now had been occupied by the fauna once inhabited the area, baboons and colorful parrots were a common sight in the green jungle that overtook the concrete jungle.

The trio of Guardians walked its way around the city, careful to not draw unwanted guests.

Leading the group, walking tall and stoic, with his bronze scout rifle ready in hand, and the toughest and most determinate titan I ever met: Sansone 13-16. A true war dog that survived the Battle of the Twilight Gap and still has only one though: protect humanity, the Last City and the Traveler by any Darkness' creature. And he still hasn't given up.

On that day he worn a full set of Crucible gear, gained by crushing jaws with endless shoulder charges, all ornate in gold and white. His purple mark hung from the right side of the belt, woven with a golden broad axe on it. His helm was the copy of the one worn by the legendary general Saint-14 during the Twilight Gap and had a dent that run across all the visor, probable a mark left by a shock blade.

His heavy footsteps hushed the ones of the hunter behind him, who made no sound, not even her long cloak rustled against the grass. Her name was Holly, but you could call her 'mom', thanks to her motherly and cheerful behavior. Her armor wasn't a full set like the like the one of the titan, it had Vanguard and Crucible pieces, either bought or found in an engram —am I the only one who only finds shards in those things?!- Anyway, the best piece was the exotic chest plate by the golden wolf head on it, perfectly matching the one embroiled on her cloak.

Behind her, as the last member of the fire team: Jaquimo; a young warlock, who at the time had just started his Guardian career after being a Speaker's student for most of his second life. The color scheme of his armor was rater…odd, for a task in the jungle, especially his robe: bright red and blue, with a shining black helm piece and a flaming bond, perfectly matching his hotheaded and eccentric nature.

"Ugh! How long do we have to walk to get to this stupid university?" asked the warlock, waving his arms like no tomorrow to dispatch the cloud of darting horseflies that followed the trio.

"And, most importantly, why aren't we using our sparrows?" wined him again.

The titan let out a low, metallic grunt "If you are able to maneuver that thing without smashing it against the rocks and scraps hidden behind this grass wall, use it!"

"Is this a challenge, tin man?" replied Jaquimo with a smirk, ready to summon his vehicle.

"Nobody is challenging anyone." interrupted the hunter, glancing at booth her team mates.

"Yes, mom!" replied sarcastically the youngster, resulting in a small chuckle from the titan.

After a couple of minutes of more walking, what remained of New _Delhi's Space Odyssey Foundation_ revealed itself to the eyes of the Guardians: Banyan trees had overrun the place, tangling their roots with the concrete and steel of the facility, beautiful and colorful flowers sprouted at every corner both inside and outside the building. The place was clearly abandoned by humans but not by other forms of life.

The trio reached the main hall, a semicircle shaped room connected with the upper levels by two stairways at its sides, and to the conference hall by a door between the two stairs. At its center, a circular desk, probable once the reception of the building, with old computers placed on it and papers scattered across the mossy floor.

Sansone gave a quick look around and rolled his shoulders and neck: "Alright guys, this place is huge and we need to find those data, even if they are prototypes," he said, turning toward the other two Guardians.

"Jaquimo, you go right, Holly, left, I'll go upstairs. Scan everything you can and watch out for any threat." concluded the titan walking toward the stairway. His two teammates nodded and left.

The hunter and the warlock went through every room, every laboratory, looking for something that could help the Dead Orbit's plans, but the overgrown vegetation had tangled and destroyed most of the computers that probably held anything of interest.

The titan had been luckier, however, finding the laboratories upstairs mostly intact. He was quite happy of his discovery, but his cheerful thoughts were interrupted by a series of clicking sounds coming from the corridor outside. Sansone remained silent, his body tensed up and his hands gripped firmly his rifle, he knew too well those chatters.

"Fallen" he thought, gritting together his metallic teeth.

He quietly walked toward the sound source, ready to shoot anything that came on his path. He heard the chattering again, coming from another room. Cautiously, he entered, aiming down the scope of his weapon: his expression became dark, angry, when his optics caught the figure of a fallen captain.

The creature worn a standard captain armor by the brown and bronze color scheme, like the long, bronze colored cape bearing its House symbol embroiled in black on it; it walked nervously up and down the room, chattering something at the microphone incorporated in its headpiece, without having noticed the Guardian who observed it.

In a matter of thoughts, Sansone's helm changed from the grey, roman like one to a golden and more modern model; he shook his head slightly and two blue flames erupted from the visor, just above his eyebrows. The titan clipped his gun to his back and moved his body like a wave, readying all his joints.

"Kill twenty enemies with a melee attack without dying minus: one." He thought, taking a deep breath.

* * *

**Here is the first chapter of my first fanfiction, i really hope you like it!**

**(Apologizing in advance for any grammar mistake)**


	2. Overgrown tarantulas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Thank you for reading/ commenting/ faving, I really appreciate it.  
> I'm writing this note to inform you about the upcoming chapters: up to the 8th, they will be posted with a short time gap between one and the other because they are already wrote down; after the 8th, the updates will be a bit slower cause I have to put them to words. Anyway, thanks again and I hope you enjoy!

The titan dashed at full speed toward the captain, who had just noticed him due to the stomping of metallic feet on the old wooden floor; as soon as it turned around, its eyes widened and it tried to block the sheer force of the titan's shoulder charge by stretching out all its four arms in a futile attempt. The creature got hit square in the chest and sent flying against the wall behind it, a loud thud and a choked gasp were the only sound it made before crumpling to the floor, shocked by the impact.

Sansone smirked happily at his blow and turned around, certain of the kill, just before hearing a feral snarl and being thrown near the door from where he entered few moments before. The titan quickly regained his balance, reaching for his rifle strapped on his back. Unfortunately, the weapon wasn't there anymore. The captain gained Sansone's attention by clearing its throat, making him raise his gaze.

"Oh, great!" he grunted, seeing his scout rifle in the grips of the alien: if that thing's face wouldn't have been masked, it would have certainly smirked in amusement; with little effort, the captain snapped the piece of metal an polymers in half, using all its four arms. The blue flames on the titan's helm started to burn higher and brighter, driven by the sheer anger of seeing so many marks wasted. He examined his other weapons, hoping to have something that could help in the situation: sniper rifle? Pass, the room was too small. An empty machine gun? Pass again, it's empty. He had only two options: beating the captain with an empty weapon was one, the other…

"Alright, overgrown tarantula! If it's a fistfight you want you'll have it!" challenged Sansone angrily, rising his fists.

The captain let out a low growl, maybe offended by the titan's insult and unsheathed its two swords, crackling with blue energy and electric sparks, ready to fight.

"…Fistfight my metal bottom." commented him, pondering the option of using the sniper rifle as a bat.

The two opponents stared with hatred at each other, waiting for the first move; the room was silent, only the static buzzing of the swords and the occasional clicking made by the fallen's mandibles could be heard.

The titan backed away a few steps, ready to bash again at full sped against the creature. In a blink, the captain teleported itself behind the titan and swung booth swords in attempt to cut through the guardian's armor: he reacted by turning around and gripping the blades with his bare hands, without losing a single finger thanks to the thick gloves and the fact that he was, well, made of sturdy metal.

In a rapid movement, Sansone jerked the blades in opposite directions, making the captain lose its balance and bent forward, giving the titan an opportunity to deliver a well placed kick to the alien's sides, where its armor was thinner. It was showed backward, loosening its grasp to the swords grips and allowing the titan to disarm it.

"Looks like I have the upper hand now." Commented triumphantly Sansone, pointing the blade at the creature throat.

Using the overconfidence of the guardian at its advantage, the captains swiped the ground with one leg, making the titan trip backward and fall on his back, where the captain then pinned him in place. Its upper hands tried to take its swords away from the guardian metallic grip, while he tried to resist.

The titan shifted, grabbing the captain's sides with his legs and inverting its position with his own. Feeling trapped in its new position, the captain head butted as strongly as it could the opponent to stun him and then using also the lower pair of hands to free itself.

It worked and the titan was thrown aside, the captain regaining its weapons with a clicking sound. The titan tried do pin it against a wall, but it teleported behind him and swung again, blow again avoided by the titan ducking. He tried to use his fists to knock the fallen out, but the creature blocked every titan's blow with the blades, and the titan blocked all captain's slashes using his gauntlets. Every blow was countered and the opponents didn't seem willing to give up any soon.

After the last swung aimed at his head, the titan backed away, resulting in the captain following him with angry steps; a beeping sound caught its attention and it looked at its feet: a spherical grenade had rolled between its legs, thrown by the titan who now looked in amusement at the fallen's eyes widening.

A burst of blinding light exploded, leaving the creature disoriented and in temporary blindness: it whimpered and whined while having its hand placed on its four eyes.

Now, Sansone could do what a titan was best at: punching the living thing out of this Darkness' creature. It wasn't fair since it was now blinded, but it had brought two swords to a fistfight!

The captain stumbled and flinched at every blow, even if it tried to parry one, another would have hit its face with horrible force making a metallic sound and denting its helm.

Sansone then grabbed it by the cloth wrapped around the creature's neck and hurled it against the room entrance…

From were Holly rushed in, drawn there by the bursting sound of the grenade and by the snarls and screams.

"I've heard an explosion! Are you alright Sa—"her sentence was cut short by the 7 feet tall alien who smashed against her, pinning her on her back.

The titan slapped his hands on his masked mouth in a gasp.

"OH TRAVELLER! Are you alright, Holly?!" Cried him worried, seeing the woman flailing under the captain's weight.

The fallen shook its head vigorously, regaining sight and shaking off that feeling of dizziness caused by the countless fists its skull had to endure.

"H-Holly?" it asked surprised, turning its head around to see the hunter struggling in attempt to gain some vital space.

"Holly!" it cried, shifting it position and relieving the woman's figure from the pressure caused by its own body. She coughed and panted, still feeling dizzy due to the impact, as the captain crouched near her and helped her to sit up.

"Please, tell me I have not hurt you!" it asked panicking, its voice deep and growled, putting some emphasis on some consonants. It held the hunter's head in his upper hands, and stared at her with wide eyes. Sansone flinched at the captain's words: was he hearing things or that captain actually talked in english?

"I'm fine Vaksir—don't worry." She replied, massaging her back with one hand while patting the captain's face with the other one. It let out a sigh of relief, before the titan forcefully lifted it up by the neck and pinned it again against a wall.

"TAKE YOUR FILTHY HANDS AWAY FROM HER!" Roared Sansone, the two little flames on his visor now burnt higher and till down his neck, powered by his anger. The alien narrowed its eyes,letting out a low snarl in response.

"Sansone! No! He means no harm!" intervened quickly Holly, shaking the titan's arm.

"No harm?! It nearly cut off my head!" replied him angrily, bashing slightly the captain against the wall.

"Leave him be, please!"

The titan glanced skeptical at his teammate, staring at her for a couple of seconds. He let out a low grunt of disapproval but eventually loosened his grip from the captain's neck. A moment of silence passed, with the three individuals staring at each other.

"And now, could you explain me why you and this thing—"The Titan's question was interrupted by a loud bang followed by the pain cry of the captain who fell on the ground holding his bleeding arm. The two guardians turned around and saw Jaquimo standing by the room entrance with his hand cannon aimed down.

"I ran as soon as I heard Sansone's shout!" he panted, exhausted by the run from one side of the building to the other.

"JA-QUIMO!" called hysterically the hunter, gritting her teeth and tugging the fabric of her hood.

"What? There was a fallen and I shoot it!" replied the warlock shrugging his shoulders.

"But you missed…" commented the titan, placing his hand palm on his visor and shaking his head disappointed.

"You alright there, Vaks?" asked concerned Holly, crouching near the captain.

"M'r-dà ihd jar'no ke!" growled him in response, gritting his teeth and holding tightly his left biceps. The translation of what he said was similar to a

' What a shitty day! '.

Jaquimo looked confused at the scene, not understanding the woman's concern. He quickly glanced at the titan for an answer, receiving only a confused shrug from his shoulders.

"…Could someone explain me what did I miss aside from its head?"Asked then him, receiving only an annoyed glare booth from the woman and the captain.

Holly turned the attention toward the hole on the captain's arm, moving his hand aside to have a better look at the wound: the high caliber rounds ripped right through the fabric and the flesh, leaving a small, bleeding hole; luckily for the fallen, high caliber rounds were powerful but meant to stun over to kill.

Vaksir sensed the woman's distressed look and tried to reassure her.

"I am fine, don't worry" he said calmly, caressing her face.

She sighed in attempt to convince herself of the captain's words, before standing up and offering one hand to him, helping him on his feet.

A new series of clicking sounds and snarls caught the guardians' attention: a group of smaller fallen crawled had cornered them by quietly crawling inside the room from a breach in one of the walls. There were three vandal and three dregs, all dressed in brown and bronze like the captain and all with their weapons aimed at the guardians.

The warlock readied his gun once again, aiming at one of the vandals who held a pair of shock blades, while Sansone raised his fists ready to brawl.

Holly blocked her teammates by placing each of her hands on one of theirs, the two looking at her confused.

The captain held up one hand, growling something at his men who followed the order and lowered their arsenal.

"Don't tell me you also know these?!" asked annoyed the titan, pointing at the group.

Holly chuckled nervously, stroking her arm. Her two teammates exchanged an incredulous look at each other, speechless.

"Alright, seriously, can someone explain to me what's happening?" asked again jaquimo, scratching the top of his helm.

"Maybe Holly can." Replied seriously Sansone, glaring at the hunter.

The woman bit her lips and sighed deeply.

"Ugh! Alright! But, please, no gunfire, grenades, Fists of Havocs or Nova Bombs, got it?"she ordered, pointing at the titan who held up his right hand and placed his left one on his chest, like making a wove.

The woman sighed again and sat down on the floor, followed by all the presents.

 

 

 


	3. Once upon a time...

The room was silent; everyone had sat down on the dusty and mossy floor in a sort of circle. Sansone gave quick glances at the group of fallen that glanced back, out of curiosity or cautiousness. The situation made Holly quite nervous, she kept twisting and stretching the hem of her cloak and sighed heavily.

"Alright… let's talk," the titan spoke, the gaze of the presents falling on his figure; he held two fingers up, ticking them off as he spoke.

"First: want their names in case I'll have to hang their heads above my fireplace," this statement caused a series of grunts to rise from each of the fallen, quite annoyed by his behavior.

"Second, how the hell did you met them?" he asked lastly, anger and disbelief could be heard in his voice.

The hunter quickly glanced at the captain, who slightly tipped his head like calmly telling her to go on. She took a deep breath and started introducing one by one the fallen in the room, starting from the dregs.

"So…those are: Rikis, Yakis and Medris..." she paused a moment, turning toward the the vandals. "While they are Fastik, Pylak and Atker… the big guy near me is Vaksir" she concluded, looking at the captain who crossed all four arms and nodded to greet the warlock, while directing a silent glare to the titan; Sansone noticed Vaksir's gaze and grunted, crossing his arms as well.

"And, as for how you met them?" asked curious jaquimo, shifting his posture to a more comfortable but careful one.

"Well, it's a pretty long story…" replied Holly, nervously scratching the back of her neck.

"Mostly because I suck at reading radar scans…" added mumbling the captain, placing one hand on the woman's shoulder.

The titan rolled his eyes in annoyance while the warlock blinked in pure surprise and stood up in a jump.

"You can speak English?!" he cried in excitement, being the first time he heard a fallen speak something comprehensible.

"One joke at time, half pint!" cut off Sansone, tugging one of the edges of the warlock's robe and making him sit again in a grumble, sound gave off mostly due to the nickname than anything else.

"I meet the guys there some months ago, when Vaksir became captain…" replied the hunter, looking at the pack of fallen in front of her.

"For how I met him, however, we have to go back of about…eleven years?" added her, chuckling nervously.

"Eleven years?!" thought the titan dumbstruck, the flames on his visors flickering irregularly; he wanted to burst and shout: heck, he and Holly had known each others for five years and she never told him of her little 'freak's circus'. He couldn't make a scene, he had sworn to stay calm, but his refrigerant was boiling due to his growing anger.

He tried to complain, rising up one hand ready to speak, but Jaquimo slapped his own hand on the titan's visor, where the mouth should have been.

"Please, continue!" added then the warlock, gesturing with his free hand. The woman cleaned her throat and started speaking.

"Well, it all started off like a simple patrol on the Moon…" she started, as everyone listened to her carefully.

At the time, Holly was just a novice guardian who was doing her errands on the Moon, you know, those tedious quests you get by activating those little probes scattered across the planets surfaces. One of them required to scan a string of Hive glyphs located inside one of the countless tunnels running beneath the moon surface. While finding them she got lost and, due to how deep down the tunnels ran, couldn't return back to orbit. She was stuck in that labyrinth.

In her wandering, she stumbled upon a group of shrieking Thralls that were chasing a lone and exhausted vandal, dressed in bronze and brown colors. They had him cornered and were slowly shredding him into pieces.

The woman saw the entire scene, and backed away, don't wanting anything to do with the group of space zombies. But she stopped before taking another tunnel. Her common sense was telling her to go, but more she looked at the poor vandal, more she felt like she had to do something, at least relieve him from his pursuers.

So she took a deep breath and faced the Thralls, flaming Golden Gun aimed at them: all three solar projectiles were fired, reducing to ashes most of the monsters in a cloud of flames. The remaining Thralls focused their attention toward the guardian, swiping their claws at her. The hunter jumped back and forth, trying to avoid those claws while using her throwing knife to dispatch the remaining aggressors. Thanks to her swarm grenades also the last few Thralls fell, leaving the hunter panting and covered in black ashes.

She quickly glanced toward the vandal without wanting to: he had collapsed on the ground, panting and shivering; his armor and under suit had been torn and scratched by the claws of the Thralls, exposing the bleeding wounds.

Even if they were enemies, she could only feel bad for him. A low sigh escaped her mask, knowing that she would regret that action, and slouched one of his upper arms over her shoulders, dragging the vandal to a 'safer place'. It was a breach in the wall.

There, she cut all the cloaks she had into stripes, making colorful bandages that she then wrapped around the fallen wounds, tightening them with spare sapphire wires. After tending to the vandal's injuries, Holly sat against the wall across from him, a bit to let him rest an bit because she was unsure when he would have woken up and how would have it reacted.

After a couple of ours the vandal regained consciousness, shaking his head still dizzy; he looked around himself, trying to figure out what happened and where he was…

And why there was a guardian who stared at him.

His stance became aggressive and tried to stand up, but was too weak and fell again on his belly, hissing at the woman as a warning.

She tried to calm him down, thing that made the vandal ask drily 'what do you want?' leaving her quite surprised.

She quickly explained what happened to him and how she got lost, hoping the fallen could help her in his turn. He could help her, owning a device similar to a compass that he could use to locate his camp base, but, why he had to help her? They were enemies, but she had saved his life and nursed him, so there was a sort of truce between the two, right?

He was skeptical, but agreed to help her at one condition: he would have kept her Ghost in his pocket.

The hunter flinched at the fallen request: her Ghost? Don't even think about it, he could have even lied to her by telling that he could help, but, what other options had she? Then she remembered that Sparks, her Ghost, could teleport itself, so in case of the vandal trying any trick, it could vanish and get back to her.

She remained silent a moment and agreed to the terms, before summoning her little diamond shaped companion and handing it to the vandal, with much disappointment from the Ghost.

The two prepared to leave their safe house, the guardian readying all her weapons and the vandal turning on his device.

They spent nearly a week in that labyrinth, slowed down by Vaksir's weak physique and encounters with the Hive troops, without including the numerous dead ends and near death experiences.

They finally managed to find an exit, finally escaping that hell and seeing the starry sky after what it felt like an eternity.

The vandal turned around, awkwardly thanking the woman: but she wasn't there anymore, like her Ghost wasn't in his pocket anymore. Where her figure stood moments before had been replaced by light particles. So he started walking again toward his camp base, thinking what kind of strange adventure he just had.

They were enemies, but that encounter, even if brief, had changed booth the guardian and the fallen.

"…And that's the story of how I met our captain here, I spare you all the other times we met during those years because nothing much happened." Concluded the woman, somewhat relieved.

Sansone stared at her with his arms crossed on his chest, why Jaquimo pretended to wipe away a tear from his visor.

"Why didn't you kill it when you got out of the tunnels?" he asked drily, making the woman blink quite confused, the group of fallen hissing and glaring at the titan for his question.

"You had what you wanted, another hunter —or me- would have placed a bullet in its head: why you just left?" he asked once again, with all the seriousness he was capable of.

Holly didn't know how to respond at her teammate question, and felt quite uncomfortable by it.

"…I didn't… have the guts…" she replied quietly "I knew that if I would have done it, it would have felt as if I killed a friend…" she continued, sinking her head between her shoulders and looking at the ground.

Te captain huffed softly and placed one hand on the hunter's shoulders, as he wanted to reassure her, causing a smile to rise behind her mask.

The titan shifted his gaze at the captain: "And why haven't you tried to take her as a hostage? Or kill her." asked him.

"I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I know to choose my enemies," he glanced down at the woman, his eye softened "And Holly isn't an enemy" he concluded, asking her afterward if he had used the appropriate expression.

Sansone let out a low sigh and shook his head;

"Alright…" he said standing up, under the confused gaze of the others. He held out one hand and his Ghost appeared from thin air.

"I'll better warn Zavala of the presence of an unknown House we encountered in the zone of New Delhi…" he said calmly, Holly jumped up in shock, the fallen gripping their weapons ready to stop the heavy armored guardian.

"No! Sansone, wait—"tried to retort the woman, without being listened by him.

"I won't tell him you fraternized with the enemy—"his sentence was cut short by a slap charged of Void energy aimed at the back of his head. He flinched slightly and turned toward the warlock, who stared at him from his short stature.

"What is wrong with you, warlock?!"

"What the hell is wrong with you, titan?!" asked him in response.

"Oh, I don't know! Maybe doing my job?" replied Sansone sarcastic, his flaming helmet entirely wrapped in blue flames.

"Came on! They speak English; they trust a guardian and they may have useful information about,-I don't know—other Houses weak points or shit like that?!" replied the warlock in an act of spite.

"Yeah! And maybe their Kell is willing to trade that information for help!"

The titan's choleric speech was interred by the woman's nervous chuckle. The two arguing guardians stopped their quarrel and turned toward the hunter.

"Holly… what else aren't you telling us?" he asked, stepping forward, his fists clenched.

"Well… what you said is kind of true…"she tried to explain, stroking together her hands in nervousness.

"We are actually willing to trade information for protection and resources." butted in the captain.

Sansone remained silent a moment, staring at the tall fallen.

"What kind of information?" asked him then.

"Translation, scavenged tech even military support. Everything is negotiable during these times." Replied Vaksir, shrugging his shoulders.

"…Does the Speaker know about them?" asked again Sansone, tipping his head toward the group of fallen.

The hunter took a deep breath, biting her lips.

"Well… I told them I could have found a possible ally outside the City, but…" she replied, stroking the back of her neck.

"But he hasn't understood you were talking about a bunch of spiders…" concluded the titan, rolling his eyes. He then turned his attention toward the captain.

"And your Kell?"

"She is aware of the possibility of an alliance with the Last City, but you will have to ask her directly, if you want an answer and discuss of the terms, and also hope the barons are in a good mood." He explained calmly.

Sansone tilted slightly his head by one side.

"So you are telling me there is a slight chance, if we go to your Kell and ask it to ally with us, of an entire House of fallen attacking us?" He asked, slightly smirking behind the visor.

"In the worst case, yes." Answered Vaksir, gulping nervously, one hand placed on his chest plate.

The heavy guardian exchanged a brief glance to his teammate; he huffed defiantly and cracked his knuckles producing a metallic sound. It was just like the old times, when he and his comrades had to fight countless hordes of enemies with only the power of the light within them.

"Then, let's not make them wait."

 

 


	4. fallen city

The two groups, booth the small one of the guardians' and the larger lack of fallen, walked their way outside the building, where fthe acility garden onve was: now it had became a small and colorful jungle. In a clearing surrounaed by trees, a rusty fallen skiff hovered about five meters from the ground, ready to take off as soon as its crew would have returned.

"OH NO! There is no way I'm gonna fly on that dog food can of a ship!" Complained Sansone, pointing at the vessel; he wasn't completely wrong, that thing looked like it was about to fall into pieces in any moment.

"If you wanna get shot down by a spider tank, use your ship! We'll menage to revive you, if we remember." Replyed defiantly Jaquimo.

The titan sighed heavily, rolling his eyes, before agreeing to fly aboard of the skiff. He grabbed one of the ropes hanging from the rear side of the ship,from were usually the troops jumped down, and ponderously lifted himself up, climbing the ropes and flailing his legs. Jaquimo and Holly were more agile than their titan team mate, and climbed their way to the top without much effort like the fallen troops. The last one to enter the ship was Vaksir.

The interior of the ship was similar to the one of a pre Golden Age aircraft used daring military operation: there was a narrow corridor laeding to the cockpit, with long seats just above the closed hatches from were you could jump down.

"If you want to take off your helmets feel free to do so." Informed Vaksir, walking out of the cockpit.

"Tch! So you can poison us with some kind of volatile toxin?" Asked skeptical the titan, crossing his arms.

"You would be the last one to die in case of air poisoning!" Replied chuckling Jaquimo, harnessing with his helm. A short hiss was heard and the headpiece came off.

"Ugh! My hair is a mess! " He grumbled, looking at his reflection on the helm visor.

He had pale blue skin like most awoken, with icy blue eyes; his face was rectangular with a square jaw and a long nose, adorned by black markings under the eyes, on the nose bridge and chin. His charcoal black hair were usually tied neatly in a short ponytail, but now they were all loosened and ruffled.

As he was busy adjusting his hairdo, also Holly took off her helm. Her face had a slightly square face, even if rounded, with big grey eyes and short, dark blonde hair kept in a pixie cut. A blue stripe crossed her face side to side, just under the eyes.

The titan rolled his eyes and shook his head in disappointment, but took off his helmet in the end. His face by the prominent 'cheekbones' was covered in golden plates that became black on the mouth, while his optics were of a piercing blue; two horn like sensor placed just above his eyebrows added more emphasis at his intimidating aura.

The group of fallen stared with curiosity at the three different face structures before them, so different from their own.

"What is it? They never saw an exo before? " asked huffing Sansone.

"Quite possible..." replyed Vaksir, reaching for the release bottom of his own headpiece "...Like I doubt you ever saw an Eliksni umasked." He concluded, tucking the helmet under one of his arms.

His face looked more like the one of a reptile than the one of an insect, square and with a strong jaw and slits for his nose; instead of soft cheeks, he had two little mandibles one for each side of the face, that could be moved independently from the main one. Like all fallen, he had four blue eyes, contrasting with his dul grayish brownish skin tone, even if it was darker in some parts due to the bruises caused by the fight with the titan.

Also the other troops took off their masks, to let their skin breath, and revealed similar features even if each of them could be distinguished by the other. Another thing the three guardian noticed was that some fallen, the males, had a little trail of spiky black tendrils running from the scalp down to the neck, while others, the females, had none. Now we're the guardians who stared at the fallen in curiosity, even for Sansone was somewhat a new sight.

The captain felt himself being tugged by the cloth around his neck downward, where a gloved finger started poking his mandibles causing him to flinch.

"How are you able to use some sounds of our alphabet if you have no lips?" Asked intrigued the warlock, forcefully opening the captain's mouth to reveal a row of sharp white teeth. Vaksir struggled a moment and broke free from the guardian's grip, glaring at him for the unexpected move.

"I menage." Hissed him in response, rubbing his mandibles. Heck! They were sensitive!

"Came on, half pint: you'll have time to dissect it once I'll place a bullet between it's eyes." Commented Sansone defiantly, causing a snarl to form on the captain's fearures; Holly interrupted his dry chuckle with a slight punch on his arm.

"Sorry... Anyway, you still haven't told us from which House are you from: I fought in the Twilight Gap,but I never saw your banner." Asked the titan, a hint of curiosity in his voice.

"That is because the House of Knowledge has not directly fought against humanity, " explained Vaksir "We had the role of... strategist a and information brokers, while the other Houses were the military strengh-" His sentence was cut short by the titans metal grip wrapped around his throat that forcefully lifted him up.

"So it was you who warmed the Devils about the breach in the perimeter defenses!" Roared the titan, causing the presents to flinch.

"We warned nobody-"

"Then how did they knew i was the only Defender titan in the whole platoon?" He asked again, thightening his greep. A choked gasp came from the captain's mouth as he tried to brake free, the other fallen pointing their weapons at the titan.

"SANSONE 13-16!" Cried Holly dead worried, gaining her teammate attention. He saw her scared look and understood to let go the captain.

"It was not us..." panted Vaksir, rubbing his throat "We cut ties with the other Houses before the Battle of the Twilight Gap: they must have observed you long enough to understand your weakness."

Sansone calmed up and sat again on the cold bench, without saying a word. The hunter sighed and placed one hand on her forehead: hell, if there was so much tension between Sansone and the fallen, that alliance would have been really complicated to build.

A short moment of silence followed, interrupted by a chattering sound coming from the captain's headpiece; he put it on again and started speaking, keeping pressed a little button on the helm side.

"Is something wrong? " asked Jaquimo.

"No, nothing: I just asked the control board permission to land... and I informed the guards about three guests..." he replied, reaching for what looked like modified handcuffs "Could you put these on?" Asked him, tossing to each of the guardians one pair of harnesses. They looked like hevy metal gloves, united from the wrist above to avoid any hazardous movement.

The guardians stared confused at the metal pieces, examinating them.

"You are taking us as hostages?!" Asked dumbstruck the warlock. Sansone was ready to rip off his head.

"What? No! No! It is just to show the others you are harmless!" He replied quickly, resecuring but confusing the trio "I do not want to cause a fight, this is just a little precaution. " explained him.

Holly looked skeptical at the handcuffs, and then up at her fallen friend: they had known for eleven years, so they kinda trusted each other, right? And she knew that captain hadn't the heart to betray her, no matter what.

"Alright, let me put on my helm first. " sighed her slightly, the other guardians looking at her shocked. She turned toward them and smiled, trying to convince them. They huffed and rolled their eyes, but decided to play along the captain's plan.

The skiff descended from the clouds, hovering above the green jungle that grew at the feet of a rock scarp. There, carved in the black stone of the hill, a majestic palace dated back much more before the Golden Age. There were chiseled columns at the sides of the streets that held up massive balconies, beautiful statues at the corners of the buildings that were tangled in the roots of tall trees. The walls of the buildings were carved with bas relief illustrated with animals, men and deities and from the roofs fell down little waterfalls that flowed down the stairs of the temples. It was a really beautiful place, even if it was now occupied by fallen.

The skiff was docked near the main street of the dreamlike city, where a crowd of fallen had reunited ready to 'greet' the guests:captains, vandals, Kell's guards, all ready to open fire at them.

The vandals and dregs were the firsts to jump down, followed by the captain; Sansone jumped down with a loud thud, looking around himself at the horde of enemies. Holly and Jaquimo followed in a more graceful way.

There was an unreal silence, nobody moved. A blood chilling roar echoed from the bottom of the crowd and a tall fallen, a baron, walked in front of the captain: he was much taller than Vaksir and looked fairly older; he worn a black fur made shrug around his shoulders, a loincloth hung from his belt and beared a scar across his left pair of eyes.

"Iuq eshi annof ic-oshak?!" Growled the baron, crossing his arms on his chest. He looked quite angry with the captain, glaring at him from his towering 8 feet of height.

"Kon'il Kell desh'r osshak, vhir Oroky..." replied Vaksir meekly, his head low and bowing in front of his superior. His sentence caused dismay among the crowd of fallen, who started to chatter at each others in shock. The baron roared at the crowd, making it fell silent again, before grabbing the cloth around the captain's neck and tugging it toward himself,their faces nearly touching.

The baron stared at the captain with mad anger, while the smaller fallen's eyes were full of fear; the baron growled something at him, maybe a rhetorical question because, when the captain replied, he was thrown on the ground with terrifying force.

The three guardians flinched at the shouts of the baron: Holly wanted to help her friend, but was afraid to enrage the baron even more; the poor captain tried to stand up, but his superior's feet showed him down once again. As the bigger fallen lifted up one of his sword to strike a blow against the defenseless and petrified Vaksir, a more feminine voice was herd, making the baron stop and turn around.

Behind him stood a group of high ranking Kell's Guard: they were pretty much captain sized vandals, adorned in shiny armour and with a long cape hanging from their shoulders. Their armour looked more adorned and decored than the one worn by the other soldiers, being finely cieseled with golden features. Each of the guards either carried a spear or a shock rifle.

The guard who talked before stepped forward, placing herself near the two males and whispered something to the baron. The larger fallen glared angrily at the captain and, with a grunt, withdrew his sword, allowing Vaksir to stand up. The female then turned toward the guardian and spoke to them:

"The Kell is waiting for you..." she said with the same growled accent of the captain, gesturing him and the trio to follow her.

The three guardians, shoot quick confused glances at each others, before they started walking alongside an escorts of Guards. The baron observed the group as it walked to the heart of the city, asking himself what his liege had in mind.

"Are you alright Vaks? " asked Holly with an hint of concern.

"Yes,yes...do not worry about me..." He replied calmly, massaging his aching back.

"What did that baron want?" Asked then Sansone.

"That was baron Hereks: he is famous for his... bad temper..." explained the captain.

"Otsh'uq es ta keper na-osshak..dashno..."Growled the Guard who spoke before.

"What did she say?" Asked curious Jaquimo.

"Oh, nothing, my sister Malikha just remimded me that i was an idiot to inform him with such short advance... Ze-gra, Malikha!" Said Vaksir annoyed.

"So now we are going to the Kell?" Asked again the Warlock.

"Well, yes, i hope you will behave properly in front of the highes ranking individual of the Eliksni's hierarchy." Repplied Vaksir, shooting a quick glare at the titan who huffed annoyed.

The group walked down the ancient streets crowded with fallen, some of them worn standard armours but most of tgthem had a civilian attire: colorful dresses, jackets, all cloths that the guardians never saw being worn by the fallen. The citizens chatted happily at each others, bought and sold goods at the little stands located at the streets edges and a thing that possibly no guardian had ever saw: children playing. There were little kids that played cheerfully around the streets, and that stopped their games as soon as they saw the trio of 'aliens' to look at them in awe and fear like the adults. The sight of children left the guardians stupefied and somewhat guilty: they looked so similar to the adults they had encountered and killed countless times, but looked also so...innocent and carefree, like the children of the last city.

The Guards guided the trio of guardians inside one of the buildings, one that looked much like a temple: its walls bas reliefs were hidden behind the House of Knowledge banners that hung from the ceiling, orange lamps lighted the place with a hot light and. As they passed by, other Guards glared suspicious at the guardians.

They walked up to a massive stone door, decored with indian gods' effigies.

"The Kell and Ark'tor are waiting for you...do mot try anything funny." Hissed Malikha, shooting a glare at the trio.

The the hunter and warlock nodded nervously, while the titan just rolled his eyes.

The Guards opened the massive door, revealing the room hidden behind it.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

The room was large and circular, light poured in from a circular window at the center of the dome shaped ceiling. The sides of the dome were decorated with mitologycal scenes, still visible even if corroded by the weather and tangled in vines. Massive chiselled columns held the dome up, and twelve doors by the decorated archways leaded to as many rooms as the number of doors. At the bottom of the room, between two of the twelve doors, was placed a massive metal throne, where the Kell Aliksis sat with the Archon, Teriks, by her left side.

The group of strangers, still accompanied by the guards, entered and remained speechless. Saying that booth her and the Archon were tall was reductive, since they booth stood around 14 feet in height, not counting the foot added by the 'horns' on their head pieces. The Kells helm had two big 'L' shaped sensors,the horns, attached at the sides of the cap, with little antennas at their edges; the visors were two rectangular shaped pieces one above the other on each side of the face, hiding the fallen 's eyes. Attached to the mouth piece, two tubes were connected it to the chest plate, allowing the Kell to breath her precious ether. A long cloak hung from her shoulders, embroidered with decors and a collar of black fur around the hood edge, while from the belt hung a loincloth. The female's armour was similar to the one the captains and barons worn, even if more decorated.

As for the Archos appearance, few things changed: the sensors on his helm had a more irregular shape, resembling the antlers of a deer, and his cape hid his right pair of arms. The armour was as much decoded as the one of the Kell.

The liege stood up, surprised by the sight of three guardians being brought in front of her; the 'hostages' stood at the center of the room, under the beam of light, along with the captain and were surrounded by the guards. The Kell gracefully walked forward, her cape being dragged on the floor, and started walking around the guardians as the other lesser fallen bowed before her: she carefully studied the trio, their physique, their armours, their behavior and stance. The three were nervous, but remained calm under the cautious gaze of the Kell.

"What an amiable surprise having you here..." she said calmly, gesturing one of the guards to remove their handcuffs. The guard gave a confused look to his leader, but followed her order, unlocking the handcuffs of the Hunter first, then the ones of the warlock; there was no need to remove the ones of the titan, since he had forcefully separated them and tossed them aside, as if he wanted to show the fallen in the room what he was capable of doing.

"It is rare to see Yan-gadr walking to a Kell instead of blowing up everything on their path." She commented, still walking in circle around the group.

"I suppose you are not here to chat..." stepped forward the Archon, coldly staring at the trio.

The titan and the warlock turned toward Holly: she had been the one to have the idea of asking a Kell for help, so she had to be the one to talk. She gulped nervously under the gaze of so many eyes, but spoke to the towering fallen very calmly.

"We are here to propose an alliance between the Last City and this House..." the hunter's words caused a series of chatters to rise among the guards, while the Archon and the Kell gave a confused and skeptical look at each others.

"And why would you propose such thing? " Asked with seriusness Aliksis.

"With all due respect, we are booth in a pretty bad situation," replied the guardian, her head slightly lowered "And we booth want something the other has..." she continued, gaining full attention from the two towering figures.

"...Go on..." said the Kell, holding her chin with one finger.

"Well, I am a mere guardian, I have no power to decide what has to be given or not as a peace offer, but if the Vanguard and the Speaker saw you as a valuable allie..." she paused a moment, raising her head "...They could let you benefit of the Traveler's blessing." The two fallen started talking to each other of this convenient offer, while the other two guardians turned in shock toward their team mate.

"Holly, it's alright to convince them using nice words, but this is utter madness! " whispered angrily Sansone.

"I said that they COULD, nothing is certain!" Replied the woman.

"For once I'm with tin man: the Vanguard will never accept to let them benefit of the Traveler and this could cause a war we don't need!" Added Jaquimo, sadly having a point.

"Without counting the fact that,these spiders have already been under the Traveler's protection, and it LEFT them for unknown reasons: letting them near it could cause it to flee again, abandoning us!" Continued the titan.

"OR, they could become stronger and wipe us out!" Added the warlock.

The chatter of the three guardians was interrupted by the words of the Kell.

"And, what does the Last City want from us?" She asked, tapping her fingertips together, making a clicking sound. Holly hesitated a moment, her team mates looking at her once again.

"Well, Intel...military support against the Darkness-"

"As I suspected..." interrupted Aliksis, rolling her eyes somewhat annoyed "You know this 'Darkness' can not be directly breached, so you seek help against its armies..." she continued, turning her back at the group. A short moment of silence passed, then, the liege, spoke again, glancing behind her shoulders.

"I'll have to consult myself with the barons first: in the main time, feel free to visit the city. " And with a gesture, she dismissed her subordinates, who accompanied once again the group outside the palace.

"And now, what are we supposed to do while the big boss talks to its minions?" Asked quite irritated Sansone.

"Maybe you can start with calming your processors?" Asked sarcastically Holly, sitting at the edge of what remained of a fountain, now became a little pond with white lily pads.

"Hey! You were the one who had the idea of coming here, in a city that is older than me, to talk to a Kell that for what we know, could be preparing a plan to kill us!" Commented him frustrated.

"Sorry if I try to ensure humanity's survival in a way that is different from 'kill everything on sight!' " replied angrily the Hunter, standing up from her seat and walking up to the titan. The two stood a few inches the one from the other and glared angrily to each other.

"Calm down you two! We are on the same team!" Interrupted Jaquimo separating the two guardians.

"You sure? Because I think that Holly is on the spider's side!"

"I'm on the side of who could be willing to help us!"

"Then why didn't you find somebody else?" Asked Sansone, placing his hands on his hips.

"WHO, Sansone, WHO?!" Replyed the woman, words spat out from between her teeth " Traveler only knows where Rasputin and the Nine are, the Queen HATES us; if you want i can ask the Cabal! " continued her, bearing her teeth and narrowing her eyes.

"THIS is the problem, Holly: you did not ask the Tower opinion on this." He huffed disappointed, before walking away from the group.

"Where are you going?!" Cried the Hunter.

"To a place where the signal isn't scrambled so I can go back to orbit!" replied annoyed him.

"No you are not!" Hissed the captain, grabbing the titan's forearm.

"Let. Me. Go. Before i rip off your limbs!" threatened the guardian, glaring with hatred at Vaksir.

"Holly is trying to help your Last City!" Hissed again the fallen.

"So am I! I'm just doing it the way of the guardians!" Replyed the titan, freeing his arm with a jolt.

"Will you all shut up for a damn second!?" Shouted Jaquimo, gaining the trio's attention.

"I agree! Coming here to talk with a Kell without the Vanguard approval wasn't the best idea to help the Last City!" Continued the warlock, his wordsade Sansone assume a triunphant posture.

"But going back to the Tower and warning everybody, is far more dumb than trying to talk with he the Kell! " Continued the awoken man, leaving the three quite surprised "We already fight against four different Houses, having one on our side cocould give us an edge against the others." He concluded.

The titan remained silent a moment, lost in his thoughts: his team mate had a point. Again. But he was unsure: he had fought against the fallen, knew how cunning and smart they were; the Kell could have accepted to allie with humanity just to spy on it and gain informations to wipe it out. It was a big risk, but , as the titan spent time among the troops, also he could retrieve some useful informations for humanity.

"Ugh! Alright! But, remember my words: if they do something that makes me suspect of betrayal, they'll need to find a new house, because a Fist of Hacoc will destroy this one." He warned, pointing at the captain.

Holly sighed resigned: even with all his good will, Sansone would have never trusted the fallen. And now, she was starting to ask herself if he trusted at least her plan.

A group of guards walked stoically toward the three guardians and the captain.

"The Kell wants to see you." One of them informed, before turning around and walking down the street followed by the four individuals.

They entered once again in the throne room: Aliksis sitting on her throne, Teriks by her left side, and, around them, seven imposing barons, arms crossed, all with their fur shrugs and decored armours, glared with suspiciousnes at the guardians, like waiting for an attack from them.

"We came to an agreement..." spoke one of the barons,a baroness judjing by her voice.

"We will discuss with your lieges of a possible alliance between our Houses..." continued another baron.

"Only if you will help us to retrieve valuable informations from Venus." Concluded another.

Wasn't that a bit too much to ask as an incentive? Seriously, going to Venus along with fallen troops, to find informations: what if they ran into a guardians' patrol, or one of the sides decided the other couldn't be trusted? They either needed those informations really bad or they had something else in mind.

"What's on Venus?" Asked Jaquimo, after exchanging a brief look of confusion to his team mates.

"There is a valley, known by your people as the 'Jammed Zone' located at coordinates North 36-14-26, 116-50-05 West: one of our patrols has registered an increase of Vex activity In the area." Spoke the Kell, standing up from her throne and walking toward the group.

"How? That zone is highly electromagnetic: ships crash if they pass too near to the ground, radars and sensors go crazy, even exos have problems there!" Pointed out the titan, not understandig how could the Vex live there.

"That is because the Vex made it like this," explained Aliksis "Since their activity increment, there have been peeks of electromagnetic force along with drastic decrease of this force."

"Wait, Vex portals have the same behavior: how big was this change of force?" Asked Jaquimo.

"Just to make an example, we had a settlement about 20 kilometres from there: when one of the energy manifested, their servitors ceased to live and some of them even exploded." Explained the Archon.

"That must be a very big portal..." mumbled Sansone.

"Our proposal is this: you help us retrieve informations about what is happening there, and we will share those informations with the Last City." Spoke calmly the Kell.

The three guardians exchanged a brief look at each other: even if they had no idea, like most of the times, of what they were going to face, whatever the Vex were doing could became a threat for humanity.

"We accept. " Nodded Holly, stepping slightly forward.

"I was sure you would have found our offer tempting..." Said the Kelly with a devious smile under her mask

"Hereks Oroky, hiv kom'pa drhe Yan-gadr ak Venus."Ordered her afterward, turning toward the baron who before nearly strangled Vaksir. He flinched a moment when his superior spoke, before glaring at the guardians: whatever the Kell told him, he must haven't liked it.

The boron bowed to his liege, then walked toward the group: he gave each of the guardians a disgusted look before speaking to them:

"You will come along my men..." he growled unpleased, his voice deep and metallic. Hereks then turned toward the captain " Takap drhe Yan-gadr, ja haktas, asshi Zoul-shas ta!" Hissed him again, his words sounding more like a threat than an order. Vaksir could only gulp nervously and nod, before the baron walked outside the room fofollowed by the four individuals.

"What did he say?" Asked the hunter.

"Well, the Kell sent you to Venus along hi his troops and himself, ordering me to look afer you three," explained Vaksir " And he said that if you will do something stupid, he will rip my soul out of my body..." he concluded, nervously rubbing his neck.

 

"What a joyous man..." commented Jaquimo, speaking with his teeth gritting.

 

 


	6. Lone titan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everytime a phrase is wrote in italic, it means that it's spoken in fallen tongue.

The imposing baron guided the four individuals to a natural cave not much far from the city; the place was used as an hangar for the many skiffs the House of Knowledge disposed of: stalactites hung from the rock vault, along with the catwalks that separated the various docks, each one at a different height from the floor; vandals patrolled the catwalks, occasionally throwing an eye to what the others were doing at the lower levels. Dregs and shanks ran up and down the hangar to where they were needed: repairing or assembling a walker or a pike, polishing arms and armaments for their superiors; everybody was busy fulfilling their tasks, from the simplest to the most difficult. The atmosphere was very frenetic.

" _Alright frä-ktaz: pack up your things and quick, we are moving in five minutes!"_ Roared Hereks to his men. Being a baron meant he was at the head of multiple fallen packs and skiffs, each of them leaded, under his supervision, by a captain. On that day, three packs were under his lead: Vaksir's one, whose men had been temporary replaced by the three guardians, the one of a scorch captain and the one of a reaver captain. Booth of their packs were formed by two vandals and three dregs.

Like the fallen, also the trio had to prepare itself for the upcoming mission: checking the inventories, deciding which exotic armor pieces to wear, which weapon to use...and most importantly with subclass they were going.

Sansone had no doubt: going against Vex units meant that they were going to face minotaurs as well, so he needed the best grenades to shatter their shields along with a protection against their void blasts; he changed again his helm, putting on again the silver colored, roman like one he had used earlier that day. A quick shoulders shrug and he was ready to face anyone.

Jaquimo prepared himself in another way: he sat with his legs crossed on one of the metal crates scattered around the hangar, concentrating himself in a sort of meditation; he was silent for a couple of minutes, nothing could distract him from his trance, not even the two captains who seldom poked at him or tugged his black and crimson robe to see if he was still alive. Then, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes, his irises burning with a flick of fire "I love the smell of sulfur before a mission!".

As for Holly, she preferred to not change her subclass, just her armour pieces; she changed her exotic chest piece to a crucible one, and her usual helm to an exotic piece: it looked like most hunter's headpiece, with a prominent rectangular visor and rebreathers at either sides of the mouth, but it also had... a parasite, a fungus that pulsed and moved over the left part of the visor. Utterly disgusting.

" _Hey, azak tcha'bra! "_ Called out the scorch captain, smiling deviously. An 'azak tcha'bra' to the fallen, is an individual who once was a dreg but managed to regrow his docked limbs without earning them in the heat of the battle: it is used as an insult especially among captains. And Vaksir knew that when another captain said those words, they were most certainly referring to him. He sighed and clutched his second pair of arms, before shifting his attention from his equipment to the other captain.

" _What do you want, Naxus? "_ he asked annoyed.

" _Oh, nothing, I' m just surprised someone like you menaged to bring a group of guardians in front of our Kell: you aren't the best example of strength, or power, or charisma, but you are well known for your strange ideas..."_ he replied, placing his scorch cannon against a crate before walking toward the other captain " _What are you planning?!"_ growled Naxus, gripping the cloth around Vaksir's neck and tugging him toward himself. Vaksir pushed the other captain away, freeing himself.

" _I'm just trying to help this House survive!"_ Replied the smaller captain, adjusting his cape.

" _Naxus! Get your sorry ass over here!"_ Roared Hereks ffrom the bottom of the hangar. Naxus glared one last time at Vaksir, who reciprocated the gesture, before walking up to the baron. In the same moment, Holly walked near her friend.

"Is something wrong Vaks? " asked the hunter, placing one hand on the captain's forearm.

"Uh? Oh, it is nothing, just a little... exchange of ideas..." replied him, glancing toward the other captain "Are you ready to leave? If you need more time, I can ask Hereks." He then asked.

"Nah, we are good Vaks, " replied her, gesturing her team mates to catch up with her "We better go now, I don't want to get you in troubles!" Added her then.

The captain huffed softly, smiling, and walked to the dock where the skiff waited, ready to leave for Venus with its crew. The ship hovered slowly out of the cave, before its engines roared to get its massive metal frame to orbit. The journey from Earth to Venus didn't last long, it was longer than using a guardian's jumpship due to the less powerful warp drives, but the group managed to land on the jungle covered surface of the planet, by the House settlement near the Vex anomaly.

The settlement was composed of various brown tents, all bearing the House of Knowledge symbols on the sides: it had been erected among the ruins of an old venusian city whose building were now long collapsed and overran by the vegetation. There weren't many other fallen around, just a few vandals and captains who had stayed behind to pack up what remained, while all other civilians had rereturned to the main base in India.

While the vandals prepared the various equipments for the mission, Hereks, the three captains and the guardians planned how to deal with the Vex problem. The fallen spoke in their native tongue, while Vaksir translated for booth parts.

" _A scouting party has mapped part of the inside of the Vex site,"_ said the baron, unrolling a map over a flat stone, so that everyone could see " _The first part is what looks like a cave: it has various corridors and each of them leads to different rooms, most of them are dead ends but others lead to chasms and other sections of the labyrinth. "_ he explained, pointing at the map.

"And, since the map is missing a big chunk of the site, how do we know which route to take?" Asked Sansone.

"Well, we could use a sensor to measure where the signal is stronger. " Proposed Jaquimo.

"Correct. We use the machine _Yan-gadr! "_ proposed the reaver captain, Ghisix, pointing at the titan.

"You want to use me like a divining rod?!" Asked shocked and outraged the exo.

"Sansone doesn't work that way, " said Holly, placing one hand on her friend's shoulder to calm him "He is an exo, he reacts to electromagnetic forces but not in the way a normal machine does." Explained her.

" _And what should we use then?"_ Asked Hereks annoyed. Jaquimo held his chin thoughtfully for a moment, before coming up with an idea.

"We could always use our Ghosts! " proposed the awoken "They aren't effected by the waves because they are Light powered like our tin man, but they can still measure their intensity."

The baron thought a moment, looking suspiciously at the warlock. He could not believe his own words, but approved the guardian's proposal. Naxus and Ghisix looked on shock at each others.

" _Alright, if nobody has more questions, we are ready to destroy that portal and anything that will come out of it!" G_ rowled Hereks picking up his shrapnellouncher.

"Whait! We have no idea how many Vex we'll meet!" Pointed out Sansone.

"You stormed inside a Cabal outpost without a plan, alone, this shouldn't be much different!" Chuckled Jaquimo, his titan team mate still unsure of the validity of the plan.

* * *

Like Hereks said, the first part of the labyrinth was composed of endless tunnels dug in the volcanic rock of the venusian soil: the tunnels stretched for kilometres and kilometers, some went deeper in the depth of the planet while others stretched up, toward the highest point of what seemed like a tower, made of geometrical white rock and shiny metal, like all Vex ruins. Plants had grow inside of some of the tunnels, due to the breaches on the ceiling that allowed natural light to pour in, illuminating the way along with Jaquimo's Ghost, Wisp, who offered itself to guide the group. Everybody walked cautiously , paying attention at any minimal sound, with their weapons already in hand.

As they ventured deeper, the conformation of the tunnels changed: they became larger, the walls more polished and smooth; occasionally they leaded to a bigger chamber decoded with stone and metal circles, similar in shape to the Vex portals.

Sansone, who walked at the bottom of the group cold feel his sensors scrambling slightly, he heard buzzing noises and his vision occasionally swarmed; then, a static message came into his hear piece: the voice was distorted, but the titan recognised it, having heard it many times since when he had been resurrected.

"C-commander Zavala? " He thought, quite surprised of the call from his superior.

"/G-ZzzzZz-dian! Wha-zzz-/" the commander spoke, his word blurred due to the stones blocking the signal. Sansone tried to speak too, but the Vanguard couldn't read his message. The exo cursed, he knew that if hehadn't replied to his superior's message, he would have sent a someone to look for him and his team, complicating an already delicate situation. But the signal was distorted due to the thickness of the walls and electromagnetic waves, he needed to find a place we're the signal was free. He needed to exit from the tunnels maze.

He looked around,searching for a way out:luckily for him, the chasm from where the group had just passed had an opening at the top of the vault, slightly hidden by green vines. He observed a moment the group members who all walked in fromt of him, their faces paying more attention to the floor where they stepped on than to him; he slowed his walking peace, putting distance between himself and them, until they weren't at a certain distance from him. Did so, he returned to the previous chamber, looking for an handhold to climb his way to the little breach on the ceiling .

"/What are you doing?!/" asked confused and worryed his Ghost, Dama, from the back of the titan's mind.

"Finding a way out!" Replied him clipping his weapon to his back and climbing up the wall using the protrusions of a metallic, twisted structure as the rungs of a ladder.

"/The others will notice your absence: you are compromising the mission!/" argued back the little machine.

"My only mission is to protect the Last City, not helping fallen to look for something among these ruins!" Replied him annoyed, continuing his climb.

"/But they'll assume you betrayed them, they could hurt Jaquimo and Holly!/" added again the Ghost.

Sansone remained still a moment, darkly looking at the ground many feet below himself.

"I'm not even sure they are still fighting for humanity," he replied drily "One is too soft to say no to anyone she sees in distress and proposed a condemned alliance between two enemies, the other has followed her because he is either too stupid or informations thirsty... They'll menage against a group so small.".

"/But they are your friends.../" said with sadness Dama.

"I repeat: they'll. Menage." Repeated him. He felt bad for sounding like a jerk, but now he needed to inform the commander about the situation, tell him that he was on Venus because he had some bounties to do, even if it was a lie, because he knew that no answer meant suspiciousness, and suspiciusness meant another guardian looking for him and his fire team; and this, could cause many complications if someone who was a stranger saw a pack of fallen roaming around with two guardian. Even if he was skeptical and diffident, he knew that what Holly and Jaquimo had told him earlier was the truth: this House was for now the only thing willing to fight alongside the guardians for survival.

He kept telling himself he was doing this to protect them until the hadn't returned to Earth, as he finally climbed to the top of the metal structure. About ten meters from his position, a tangle of vines and tree roots hung from the fissure like a rope.

He took a deep breath and jumped, using his jet pack to propel himself, and grabbed tightly the natural rope. Even if Sansone weighted a lot, the vines resisted, allowing him to climb outside.

He couldn't believe how much high compared to the jungle level he was: he could see a sea of green trees stretching all the way to the horizon, a cool and strong breeze made his mark flutter.

Again, he received a static message from the titan Vanguard.

"Commander, Sansone 13-16's speaking, do you copy?" Asked him, followed by a disturbed message "Zavala, do you... read me..." he asked again, turning around: his optics widened and his hand left his hear piece to slowly fall along his side; he could not believe his eyes when he realised what he was looking at, a sight few guardians had saw.

And even fewer were able to describe.


	8. Run

Walking, walking and walking again; it felt like an eternity had passed since they ventured into the maze, and the atmosphere was the Walking. And walking again. The group marched, blindly following the little Wisp down the maze; same ever since.

"Say, do you think we found an alternate way to the infamous Vault of Glass?" Asked Jaquimo, looking around himself.

"I really hope not," replied Holly" This place looks sinister enough, if that portal really leads to that hellish place, we risk to end up like Kabar and his team. "She said, a chill travelling up her spine at the thought.

"Yeah, it isn't a nice way to say goodbye... Speaking of Kabar, Sansone, didn't you know him?" Asked then the warlock.

No response was heard.

"Ugh, don't tell me you are still angry, tin man!" Chuckled Jaquimo.

"Where is the fat Yan-gadr?" Asked confused Ghisix, after turning around and not seeing the titan.

The entire group stopped suddenly, the two guardians flinched at the question, as if they stepped on a pin.

"W-where is...Sansone?" asked without breath Holly.

"He isn't... at the bottom of the group?!" Added Jaquimo, nearly having a heart attack.

The hunter and the warlock slowly turned around, their eyes wide behind their visors: everyone stared at an empty space were the titan should have been. The vandals and dregs chattered confused, the two captains looked dumbstruck at their superior whose blood was slowly boiling due to the sheer anger he felt in that moment; Vaksir pinched the point of his face between his two sets of eyes and shook his head, not believing at the grotesque situation.

"He is not there..." commented Jaquimo, his words sounding like they were being stolen from his mouth.

Hereks let out a fierce and frustrated roar, along with cursing everything the Eliksni believed sacred and holy as he walked up and down with quick steps and flailed his fists. He knew that working with guardian would have meant troubles and complications.

"I knew it!" Roared Naxus, grabbing tightly Jaquimo's throat and forcefully smacking his head to the wall, a loud thud coming from his helmet as it collided with the stone "Baron Hereks, this azak tcha'bra is plotting with these Yan-gadr to destroy our House! The Yan-gadr is probably heading back to our city at this point!" Accused the scorch captain, pointing at the other soldier. Vaksir couldn't believe his hears, a mixture of disbelief and outrage stirred inside his guts.

"Let him go!" Cried Holly, trying to loosen Naxus' grip by pulling his forearm. The fallen snarled at her and swept toward her with his lower arm, causing her to lose her balance and fall on her back with an "Oof!" And a cloud of dust.

Vaksir snarled at Naxus and violently tackled the other captain who lost his grip on the warlock and ended up in the same position he was moments before.

"We aren't trying to destroy anybody: if those were our intention, I wouldn't have brought them in front of the Kelly disarmed and chained!" Growled Vaksir, pinning the captain against the wall with his forearm. Naxus was surprised by the other fallen's reaction, it wasn't easy to get him angry.

"ENOUGH!" Roared Hereks, separating his subordinates; he then turned toward the two remaining guardians with his eyes narrowed "Where is the machine?" He asked, a growl of anger behind his words.

Jaquimo helped Holly on her feet while Wisp shifted its shell pieces to scan the surrounding area, searching for the titan.

"/Sansone 13-16 is still in the area/" it chirped; the two guardians sighed in relief.

The baron let out an annoyed grunt and glared at the two captains, then he marched in front of the group.

"Move it bunch of scavengers! We have better things to do than being concerned about a missing Yan-gadr!"He ordered, leading the pack just from behind the little drone.

"Are you alright Holly?" asked Vaksir with a hint of worry in his eyes.

"Yes, don't worry, it's nothing" replied her "We should be more worried about Sansone, thou..." she added then, holding her forehead.

"He'll be fine, you'll see" reassured the warlock "He probably saw an alternate route and followed it!"

Holly sighed and agreed with her team mate guess; she just hoped that exo wasn't doing anything stupid.

"Oh, fan-fucking-tastic!" Commented Jaquimo annoyed.

"How are we supposed to cross this thing?" Asked puzzled Vaksir, looking at the bottomless pit in front of them.

The boarders of the ravine were too distant from one another to be reached by jumping, not even Holly triple jump could cover the distance, and there weren't bridges or contraptions to help them cross the abyss either. It looked like they were stuck there.

"Wisp, isn't there another way?" Asked the warlock.

The Ghost hovered slightly back and forth, scanning the surroundings.

"/Well, I've found an alternate route: it will take a bit more time to reach the source but we shouldn't have any more hitches. /" said the Ghost, hovering back from where the group just came.

The route was different from the ones they had took before: it was made entirely of metal blocks, and some of them hovered above the floor, shifting their position as the group members passed. It had no ceiling nor a stable connection to the ground: it was a bridge in the nothingness.

The darkness surrounded the group, the visibility would have been naught if it hadn't been for the blue light that Wisp casted around itself, allowing the figures to at least avoid to bash their heads against the floating metal pieces. Far in the nothingness, one of the vandals saw a little light, a spark that vanished right away. Another vandal saw something similar, like stars that kept coming and going in a blink.

"What are those?" asked Hereks, narrowing his four eyes to try to identify what those lights were.

The hunter took her sniper rifle from her back and aimed it toward the lights.

"Jaquimo..." she called, her voice slightly agitated "Those are Ghosts, Ghosts without a guardian!"

The warlock blinked speechless: Ghosts couldn't survive without a guardian, let alone in a "Darkness zone" like that. Holly gestured him to look into her rifle scope and he saw them too.

"I read something about this phenomenon," He said, gulping nervously "You see that they look like sheets of paper?" he asked, pointing at the Ghosts " Well, it happens when guardians die in a "time stream", an area where the time has been altered by the Vex: they separate you from your Ghost and, when you die, the Ghost remains trapped in a limbo, unable to return to the era it belongs to." He explained.

"This means that we could be sent to the Jurassic era in any time?" Asked the woman.

"Well, it's more complicate than that: they send you to a possible future or past where the Vex rule, a place where you can't survive; it's a place where the time is altered, like an alternate dimension, and where the Vex take your Light without many problems." Continued the awoken.

A chill travelled up the hunter's spine, like reminding her why she was so afraid of the Vex "We must be getting near, then." She commented, resuming her walking along the other group members.

As they walked, Vaksir stepped on something, sending a slight vibration up his foot: he looked down and saw a Ghost's shell, dented and scratched, probably the companion of a guardian who perished in that maze. He picked it up and examined him for a moment, before shoving it in one of his pockets; it could always hold useful information.

The floating bridge leaded to a chamber that was completely different from the corridor that leaded to it: it was bright, with a high ceiling, its walls were made of smooth white stone; at the bottom of the room, two columns of metal held up a Vex portal, while two smaller were placed at the sides of the columns.

"Have we found the portal?" Asked Holly, admiring the construction in front of her.

"/It is a portal, however, it isn't the portal we are looking for/" Replied Wisp.

"This is a dead end, how do we get to the source?" Asked then Vaksir.

Wisp hovered up, over the main portal to the cornice that runner just under the ceiling: there was a break that leaded to another corridor.

"/I've found a way! /" Chirped Wisp.

The group members glanced at each others: they had to climb all the way up.

Here's stepped forward to one of the columns: he stretched his arms and shrugged his shoulders, before starting to climb up, his claws gripping firmly the stone. The other fallen followed him with the same technique, one behind the other.

The two guardians were quite puzzled, they couldn't climb up nor jumping to the top; Vaksir looked at them and then at the columns: he had an idea.

"At my signal, take a run up toward me." He said, before walking toward a column and positioning himself under it; he entwined his fingers to make a step with his upper hands and gestured one of the guardians to run toward him.

The warlock and hunter exchanged a brief look, like to decide who should have been the first to go.

"Well, ladies first!" He joked, holding out one arm to give her the priority. She chuckled and ran at full speed toward the captain: when she placed one feet on his hands, he propelled her into the air with enough force to allow her to read the cornice whit a double jump. She looked down from the edge and waved Jaquimo to follow her.

The warlock looked at her and then at the captain: he shrugged his shoulders and took a couple of steps the room started shaking.

The fallen that were climbing the columns fell down to the floor, the cornice and columns crumbled and the main portal fell down along with the hunter who nearly crushed against a stone chunk.

The three portals were now all lined up one beside the other. And they were active; in a couple of seconds, a horde of Vex swarmed from them: goblins, hobgoblins, minotaurs, all of them screeched metallically, their red optics staring with hatred at the group members. The fallen instinctively opened fire against the machines: some goblins flinched and lost their heads due to the sudden hail of electric bullets, while the hobgoblins that were hit curled themselves up in a flaming shield. The minotaurs charged forward, protected by their void shield, along with the headless units, void blasts and plasma projectiles being fired at the small group.

"We better get out of here!" Cried Jaquimo, retreating toward the chamber entrance, throwing solar grenades at the Vex to slow them down, the hunter doing the same with the flaming bullets of her Golden Gun.

"We are Eliksni! We remain and fight-" Ghisix brave speech was interrupted by a minotaur's blow: the imposing machine screeched loudly, grabbed the captain's head and crushed it to the ground, it's cold metal fingers soaked in a silverish liquid that slowed evaporated. The others looked at the gruesome scene speechless and astonished.

"Everybody fall back!" roared Hereks, retreating toward the entrance with the remaining troops; as they run, two dregs fell victims to the hobgoblins deadly aim.

They ran back on the metal bridge, running as fast as they could to escape from the horde of machines: the jumped and dodged the floating blocks that moved unexpectedly back and forth, up and down. Some of the fallen failed to notice their sudden movements and were consequently threw down the bridge, into the abyss; the goblins and hobgoblins started to pick off the remaining ones, killing them with a single precise blow or by incapacitating their movements, before the minotaurs could crush them like they did with the reaver captain. Naxus tried to counter their weapons, firing his scorch cannon at them and melting their shiny frame; but he failed to notice a missing block on the walk, and inevitably fell to his death. Much like the warlock.

Also the blocks that composed the bridge had started to vanish and move, making the retreat even more difficult, and Jaquimo stepped on one of the vanishing blocks as it disappeared in thin air; he felt himself fall, unconditionally, he grabbed Holly's fluttering cloak, nearly dragging her into the abyss with him, but lie let the cloth go before free falling to the bottom of the ravine.

The woman stared petrified at his team mate who desperately flailed his arms in attempt to find a handhold to save himself; he sunk Dow in the darkness.

Vaksir grabbed her by the waist and threw her over his shoulder to carry her away, before a Vex could charge toward her.

They ran and ran, putting distance between themselves and the machines, until they didn't stop by a narrowing in the wall to catch their breath.

Only Hereks, Vaksir and Holly escaped the slaughter.


	9. modern architecture

Hereks peeked from behind a corner, observing meticulously the group of Vex blocking his and his men's path; he studied them, analyzed their movements, their pattern: the goblins who marched rhythmically from one wall to the other of the corridor hobgoblins who guarded the surroundings from atop the cornices and harpies that patrolled each corridor and room for the three intruders. It wasn't' the first time the trio encountered a group of robots on their way to the ravine, but this one was too well organized, even for a group of machines: the way to the abyss was surely the right way and the portal would probably be well guarded as well.

The baron returned to cover, turning toward his two companions.

"Too many to be taken out. We play stealth." He said, pointing at the cloaking device attached to his armor.

"Can you stay invisible long enough to pass past them?" Asked then Vaksir, turning toward the guardian.

"You have to give me a couple of seconds so that I can bend the light around me and appear invisible, but after that I have about ten seconds before my camouflage fades." She explained.

"Then we run." Replied the baron: he and the captain pushed a bottom on the stealth drive located near their shoulder pads, becoming invisible with a short static noise. Holly crouched behind them, concentrating to become invisible; Hereks glanced at the group of Vex and then back at her: as soon as she became invisible, the three of them dashed at full speed toward the group of machines, dodging them as they marched. The Vex looked around themselves when their sensors caught the static noise, but didn't give it much importance.

"We are almost there! " murmured the baron, pointing toward the end of the corridor that leaded to the ravine; but it was still too far from where they were now, and the hunter's invisibility was running short. She dashed forward, jumping as far as she could to reach to end of the corridor: her invisibility faded as she turned the corner, where she lain to catch her breath, followed shortly after by the two fallen. Vaksir placed one hand on her shoulder to see if she was alright: she just waved with her hand to reply.

"Why are we here?" Asked her then.

The baron studied the chasm, its depth and the distance between the edges; his eye stopped at a metal structure across from their position: it was composed of thin pipes holding up what I could best describe as the drum of a washing machine; beside it there was another one and opposite to them, other two. Beneath them, disposed symmetrically at both sides of the ravine, other four, two on the right band two on the left bank. In his life, Hereks had already saw something similar, shining with bright light that then the Vex harnessed to give it shape, make it solid, but these were dull, they didn't shine.

"I found a way." Replied the baron, pointing at the objects "Can you light them?" He then asked to the guardian.

Holly remained silent a moment, trying to came up with an idea: to switch on those things she either needed to be a Vex or at least try with a very concentrated source of light, but they were in a cave with no windows to the outside. Then she remembered about her Motes of Light, lumps the guardians generated when the Light inside them became too strong and could cause problems and injuries to the wielder. Sparks had conserved all the Motes its guardian had generated to gift them to the Speaker, to repair damaged Ghosts or corrupted weapons and, in extreme cases, even individuals.

The Ghost materialized four shining orbs in the hands of its guardian; the two fallen stared at them like hypnotized, Vaksir stretching out one hand to touch them; the little orbs scored his palm, burning the fabric of his gauntlets.

"They are pure Light, Vaksir." Said the Hunter, moving the orbs near to her body to avoid anyone else to touch them; she was a guardian, they did nothing to her.

She placed each mote inside each of the drums located by her side of the abyss, making them shine brightly, a slight whistle could be heard. Then, each of the drums fired a beam to its opposite, creating a bridge of solid light from one edge to the other. They could now continue their walk.

"Wait, if I cannot touch the orbs, how am I supposed to walk across the bridge?" Asked puzzled the captain.

"/Vex cannot use pure light for their purposes, otherwise they would evaporate, they need to dissipate a great quantities of its power if they want to convert it to solid shape, so they use those conduits to weaken the light and at the same time shape it./" explained Sparks.

The trio arrived to the other side of the chasm and started following once again the little Ghost, hoping to arrive to that portal without any more hitches.

The ambient changed, the pitch black ravine became more and more bright as the warlock followed the trail of lost Ghosts, jumping from one rock to the other, climbing from one metallic structure up to the other, paying attention to not lose his grip and to not fall down again in that pit. He finally arrived to the top and, after briefly catching his breath, kept following the trail of Ghosts.

"What do your sensors say, Wisp?" Asked the awoken.

"/The electromagnetic waves are getting stronger and stronger: the portal must be near/" it chirped from the back of the guardian's mind.

After a couple more minutes of walking, the corridors started changing: the walls were entirely decorated with circles and semicircles engraved on them, parts of the walls were composed of large, stone wheels that revolved around a beam of light shoot from the opposite wall, like the gears of a clock. As he ventured further, the mechanisms became more and more complicated, more stone wheels revolved one onside the other, some of the semicircles even blocked the corridor like doors and the warlock had to wait for them to spin to their missing side to pass. Then, he noticed another thing: the swarm of Ghosts was slowly fading, at each step one of them vanished from the group until only one didn't remain.

It was in that moment that Jaquimo entered in the biggest room he ever encountered in that maze and the most complex and beautiful: the walls, ceiling and floor were carved with the usual drawings, but the ruts had beam filled with a shiny metal and their edges shone with a faint blue light. The room was shaped like a giant sphere by the high and decorated dome, adorned with small balconies and little doors that leaded elsewhere and, at the summit of the dome, what looked like a skylight. The room was divided in two semispherical sections by the floor of the room, suspended in midair by the beam of light that from the skylight cane down to the floor and arrived to the lower half of the dome passing by a circular hole at the center of the floating section.

And there, across from Jaquimo's position, the massive portal by the decorated and polished metal, its core shining with a sinister lilac vortex, meaning it was active, and two Gatelord statues mounted on their pedestals as if they were placed there to see who entered the room and to guard the portal; above the portal floated, revolving and spinning harmonically, what looked like a copy of the solar system, with a big, carved stone sphere at the center symbolizing the sun, surrounded by other smaller spheres, the planets, mounted on their orbits made of a thin, circle shaped pipe of metal.

The warlock looked around himself awestruck, it all liked too beautiful to be made by the Vex. He slowly walked forward, crossing a small bridge of floating stones and stopped to observe the complex; then, his eye fell on the portal vortex, the image terrifying him: the portal was a way to the Tower. It wasn't successfully charged enough to allow the Vex to go through it and invade the guardian's headquarter, but it was still a danger, it had to be destroyed before it was too late. But, how was a lone warlock supposed to destroy it?

He observed with more attention the portal: at its bottom converged a series of little grooves that channeled the energy from the two statues to the portal; he figured out that in order to incapacitate the portal, the connection between it and the gate Lords had to be interrupted. But this could cause either the waking up of the two massive Vex or the implosion of the portal, with the consequence of being swallowed by its altered time stream.

For the first time, Jaquimo's head could find no solution to a problem: generally he had crazy ideas that the others didn't approve but he adopted anyway, resolving the problem but causing some side effects, but now, he did not know what to do.

He was lost in his thoughts when he heard a familiar voice echoing from one of the balconies by the dome summit: he looked up and a gigantic smile spreader across his blue face.

"Holly!" He called, from the bottom of the dome.

The woman heard her name echoing from beneath her and looked down.

"JAQUIMO!" She couldn't believe her eyes. With much stupor from the two fallen, Vaksir nearly fainted when he saw her disappear beneath the balcony edge, jumped down, avoiding to crash like the warlock by activating her double jump ability. The two fallen had to use their four arms to climb all the way down.

The two guardians dashed one toward the other and embraced each other's, glad to see they booth were alright.

"You scared me so much little smurf." Said the woman, looking in the warlocks eyes.

"Sorry mom... and could you please not call me a smurf?" Asked him them, a bit annoyed by the nickname. He saw the two aliens and waved at them.

"Glad that also your boyfriend made it!" He commented them with a brief chuckle.

"He is not my- oh, never mind, have you seen Sansone?" She then asked, worried for the titan. Jaquimo sighed and shook his head side to side. Wherever he was, they hoped he was alright.

Everything hurt. Every inch of his metal frame hurt as if he had just been beaten by a legion of angry Phalanxes, even if his body was completely intact. He couldn't feel his head- his mind anymore, it was like someone took his memory center and ripped it out of his metal skull.

"Now you understand, oh Light bearer?" asked hissing the Ahamkara.

Sansone twitched, moving his arms to lift his body a bit: it was easier to think of it than actually do it. He grunted in pain, holding up his head and shooting a glare at the creature.

"Ugh- Understand!?" He asked, flinching slightly "What should I understand? You showed me nothing! Only darkness, pain and hollowness!"

"I ssshowed you the way you have to follow to save humanity. Then, it is up to you, to find how to use this knowledge." It replied calmly.

"How?! " shouted the titan, his eyes shining with fear, fear to receive an answer.

The Ahamkara smiled deviously.

"Search were the Darkness is brighter, where Her Daughter sings and whispers: there, you'll find the answer for humanity's sssurvival..." it said, turning around and gracefully walking away from the guardian.

"Hey! I'm not done with you!" roared him, jumping up and following the creature, despite the dizziness he felt.

"I have showed you the path, now, you can follow it or find an alternate route." Hissed so, the Ahamkara spread its sharp feathered wings and started running, trying to take off. Sansone ran behind it, overstepping the irregular blocks scattered over the floor. He cried to make the creature stop, but it did not listen. Arrived to the edge of the platform, it took off, leaving the titan behind.

Sansone let out a frustrated shout, bashing his fists against the floor beneath himself. Only to discover that the floor wasn't made of stone but of a material similar to glass. The force of the titan's blow made the thin layer crumble, and Sansone fell down, crashing to the floor with a metallic sound.

His hearing was blurry and distorted for a couple of moments, he snorted and shook his head to shook the feeling away. He opened his eyes and saw the helmets of his teammates.

"You alright, tin man?" Asked the awoken.

"I just fell down a skylight!" he grumbled annoyed, lifting himself up. He shook his head, looking around himself "...Can someone give me a brief summary of what happened since I left you?"

"We wanted to ask you the same thing!" Replied Holly, helping him up.

"Uhh..." The titan hesitated to reply "...Zavala contacted me and I was trying to send him a message..." He said, neglecting to describe his encounter with the Ahamkara.

"Ah! While you chatted with your boyfriend we were attacked by a group of Vex, got separated, nearly all the fallen have died and I climbed my way up from the bottom of an endless pit!" Explained Jaquimo with all the sarcasm he was capable of. The titan just stared at him annoyed.

"But the good news is: we found that fucking portal and it leads straight to the Last City!" Added then the awoken "And I have no idea of how to deactivate it!" He concluded, placing his hands on his hips and offering a hysteric smile.

His two teammates looked at him perplexed, before shifting their attention to the massive portal.

 

 


	10. teamwork?

"What don't you mean you have no idea how to deactivate it?" Asked the titan, slapping his helm on hia head.

"It means I have no idea how to deactivate it!" Replied Jaquimo nervous.

"Alright! Then we go through it, ask for help at the Tower and then come back to destroy it with all the Vanguard!" Said Sansone, walking toward the vortex. The warlock grabbed him by one wrist to prevent him from doing a fatal mistake.

"Only Vex can use portals to travel thought time streams, you'll be disintegrated if you enter that portal." he explained "Second: even if you could travel to the Tower, what would you say? 'Hi guys, I stumbled across some Vex ruins that are home to an army of murderous robots because a Kell asked us for help'?" Asked then him, sarcastic.

"Hey! I'm not the warlock here, you are!" Replied the titan, poking Jaquimo's shoulder.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?! You are the one who comes up with all the good ideas!" answered back the awoken.

"That's the point! If you two had listened to me, we wouldn't be here!" Shouted the titan, clenching tightly his fists.

"Can we all calm down before that hell portal activates and destroys everything?" Asked rhetorically Holly, separating the two arguing guardians. The two stopped and took a deep breath, calming up.

"We need to stay focused, then, we can kill each other in crucible!" Said Sansone, holding his forehead.

"How do we destroy the portal?" Stepped forward Hereks.

Jaquimo observed the structure carefully, taking in account everything he had learn from the reports and books about Vex. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Well, smaller portals are destroyed by firing a bunch of bullets at them for some reasons," He started explaining, everybody around him grabbing a gun "BUT! If we overload this portal, it implodes, dragging in the Void us and anything that is behind it, in this case: Tower and approximately three quarters of the Last City!" He finished.

The others lowered their weapons and stared at the portal, puzzled.

Then, Vaksir noticed hundreds of little glowing ruts, decorating the metal frame of the portal and the stone floor around it; the ruts branched out from the portal, winding up the pedestals of the two statues.

"I think the statues and the portal are linked..." He said, receiving a confused look from the others. Something in Jaquimo's mind popped up.

"Fuck me! I had forgot!" he commented, slapping his own forehead "Portals and their own Gate lords are linked: the Gate lord protects the gate, while the portal allows it to travel through time streams!" He explained.

"I don't think I'm following..." said confused Sansone, his phrase giving voice to the others confused expression.

"Alright: those two Gate lord are the power source for the portal, if we remove them from their pedestals, we cut the link between them and we can then destroy the portal without causing a nuclear explosion!" He said, trying to make the explanation comprehensible for his teammates.

"And how do we remove them without activating them?" Asked Hereks still perplexed.

"We drag them down." answered Vaksir.

"Yeah! As if it was a piece of cake!" Grunted Sansone "We have no ropes and the only one able to lift 11023 libbers is me, and those things are at least four times the weight!" He pointed out.

"We won't use brute force tin man: we'll use the power of the winch, using at our advantage those revolving stone gears located in the corridor behind us." Explained again Jaquimo.

"Now we only need a rope..." commented Vaksir, crossing his arms and holding his chin thoughtfully.

"Well, I have something similar to a rope, actually." Butted in Holly, the others 

looking at her for explanations. 

* * *

 

"5 kilometers of Sapphire Wires?! Holly, where the hell you found them?" asked dumbstruck the titan, who stood with the warlock near one of the gears.

"You have no idea of how many junk armors I get from engrams and Vanguard packages!" Replied her, cupping her mouth so that her friend could hear her from the bottom of the room.

"You mean, those Wires come from your twelfth Sanction Six complete set?" Asked chuckling Jaquimo, before turning his attention to the two fallen: Hereks and Vaksir had climbed up the two statue, to fasten the blue rope made of sturdy Sapphire strings "How are we doing with those lashings?" He asked.

"All done!" Shouted Vaksir, climbing down from the statue along the baron after having wrapped tightly in blue ropes the two Gate lords.

Jaquimo gave a last look to the two statues, moving his pointer finger up and down as if he was calculating the necessary force to take down the monoliths and the right angle they had to fall to destroy the portal with their own weight.

"Yeah, it should work..." he mumbled "Sans, at my signal, block that stone wheel." Ordered him then, picking up the rope edge. The titan cracked his knuckles and shrugged his shoulders, placing himself in front of a stone semicircle that rhythmically blocked the corridor.

The warlock nodded to him, and Sansone blocked the gear movements with all his force, his arms and legs tensed and his metal jaw gritting. Jaquimo took the occasion to tie the rope end to a little hole on the stone gear.

The titan let go the wheel, its movements made the rope windup against it. The rope tensed up, the gears spinning getting slower as the two Gate lords started to lean dangerously toward the portal. The guardians and the fall ends gaze shifted between the statues and the tensed rope, hoping that the captain's plan would work.

Before the sapphire rope could break, the two statues violently rocked forward, breaking their link with the portal and crashing against it, its circular metal frame crumbling and twisting under the statues weight; one of them crashed against the floor with such force that was broke in half due to the other one that fell on top of it.

The group cheered loudly, hugging and patting each other's shoulders.

"Alright, now we better get out of this maze before every Vex units gets behind our but!" Gestured Sans one, heading down the corridor; the two fallen and the Hunter followed him without hesitation, but Jaquimo stopped among the metal scraps, looking for something of value: he searched quickly, moving aside the metal hulls of the Gate lords. A wide smile crossed his face when he finally found it: a Gate lord's eye, extremely rare and bearer of unimaginable information and it was still functioning, the red glass still brightly red.

As the warlock admired his artifact, Sansone grabbed him by his robe collar and tugged him away. "Came on, half pint!" He incited, dragging the warlock along. 

* * *

 

The group proceed back from the way they first come in, still guided by Sparks. Everything was silent, maybe too silent, they hadn't encountered a single Vex nor heard one of their usual metal screeches, not even the Ghost's radar nor the guardian's HUD picked up any movement.

"Where did the group of machines from before go?" Asked Hereks, suspiciously looking around.

"I'd like to know..." replied Holly "There was an entire legion when we came this way, and now, there is no one!"

"An ambush?" asked Sansone, gripping firmly his rifle.

"/I don't think so: there is hardly any emission of energy in the entire site./" explained Sparks.

"Do you thing they all just ceased to function after we destroyed the portal?" Asked then the captain.

"Possible: they generally deactivate after you destroy the controlling unit." Replied the warlock.

A short minute of silence passed, before the group members' blood and oil chilled inside their veins due to a distorted and metallic cry. They all gripped tightly their weapons, arranging themselves in circle ready to face anything.

Slowly, they advanced, arriving to a chamber like many others: there, countless Vex units dragged themselves around, completely worn out; they were slow, their movements looked even more mechanic than usual. Some of them screeched as if they felt... pain, if we can apply such term to an army of murderous robots. Some of them walked around aimlessly with their eye low and dull, others lied scattered around the floor, twitching and shrieking, the white liquid that gave them life pouring out of their junctions like blood.

"How do we get to the other side?" Whispered Vaksir.

"It doesn't look like they are aware of our presence..." replied Holly, observing the machines distorted movements.

"Are you suggesting to just... walk past them?" Asked Jaquimo confused.

"Even if they look completely wrecked, firing at them would just make them angry, so, yeah, we walk past them." Replied her, carefully walking over the Vex corpses scattered around the floor.

The other looked at her wide eyed dumbstruck, Vaksir stretching out one hand to prevent her from walking among those murderous machines; she carefully made her way to the other side of the room, paying attention to not alert them: the hunter nearly stopped breathing when the walking carcass of a minotaur stopped in front of her. The thing lacked one arm, a thick black ooze leaked from the base of its neck. It stared at her for a couple of seconds, Holly clutching tightly her gun and staring back ready for the worst; it just walked past her, as she was invisible, before falling to its knees with a loud clanking of metal. Arrived to the other end of the room, she waved the others to follow.

They all exchanged a brief look, taking a deep breath and following her. Jaquimo stood back, still skeptical of the Vex meekness.

"Came on, Jaqui!" Whispered the hunter, gesturing him to follow.

The warlock was taken aback by the order, but eventually decided to cross the room. Halfway through, a cold metal hand grabbed his ankle, preventing him to advance any further. The awoken flinched when he saw the Vex rising its head from the floor to glare at him with its shattered optic, screeching loudly. Jaquimo reacted with flashing a quick burst from his pulse rifle onto the creature frame, completely deactivating it. Only to make all the other units rise like zombies and turn their flaring optics toward the group.

Jaquimo turned his head toward his friends, an annoyed and desperate look beneath his mask accompanied by a sigh: "Why is nothing that simple?!" He asked.

A hail of bullets rained toward both groups: the guardian's one slowly backing away, while the one of Vex rushing into battle like headless chickens, shrieking and clanking their metal frames.

Sansone shoved the group members behind himself, telling them to ready their arsenal as he fired a quick series of two rockets from his golden decorated rocket launcher at the horde, cluster bombs flying and decimating the surviving Vex. He waited for the remaining to get close, a shrieking horde menacingly advancing in the narrow corridor.

The titan waited patient for the first line of Vex to get close, the other two guardians and fallen aiming their gun to them: they were all tensed, their fingers steady on their weapons triggers. He calmly clipped his rifle to his back, his fingers moving rhythmically like a wave.

A goblin leapt forward with a chilling shriek, its torch hammer ready to break the titan's metal skull.

"WELCOME TO THE THUNDERDOME!" He shouted with emphasis, his arms jolting in opposite sides summoning a glowing violet bubble around himself, made of pure Void Light.

As soon as the shield expanded and came in contact with the Vex, they stumbled backward, their bronze grips reaching their optics: they were now blind walking around aimlessly and vulnerable to the group's attack.

The titan nodded and a new hail of bullets, rockets, electric shrapnel and grenades knocked them down, their frames sparking and ticking when they came in contact with the projectiles; the thundering sound of the rockets covering the piercing screams of the machines, the solar grenades melting their frames.

The members emptied all their mags to take down the horde, leaving only disfigured frames before them. They all let out a sigh of relief, resuming their walk toward the site exit; from the mesh, a horrible damaged but still working minotaur emerged and dragged its weight toward the titan who had his back turned. He quickly glanced behind himself to see the Vex arms ready to strike a blow at him.

The arms fell off and its waist was cut in half, cut off with surgical precision by the baron's two swords. He huffed pleased of his work and sheathed his blades back; Hereks gave a quick glance at the speechless titan, before heading back at the head of the group.

"Come on! I am too old to die here!" He incited.

Jaquimo, Holly and Vaksir blinked surprise at Hereks' gesture, but the stupor of the titan was far bigger than theirs: a fallen, one of his most bitter enemies, had just saved him with no hesitation.

 

 


	11. way of thinking.

The group left the ruins without further complications, returning to the camp base, where the remaining fallen greeted the baron and the captain, offering them ether and a place to sit down and relax while they waited for the skiff to come and pick them up. Not much attention was gave to the guardians, who just roamed outside the tent where Hereks was telling everyone of his heroic deeds: he exaggerated some detail to make the story even more interesting, and Vaksir knew it, but the captain kept his mouth shut and played along; he didn't certainly want to have his arms docked once more.

"...Alright commander...I apologize for the delay of my reply..." Said meekly Sansone, talking through the comm. of his helmet. He had finally had the ability to explain his superior what had happened after he left Earth.

Of course, he omitted most of the crucial details like Holly crazy idea and him aiding the fallen even if reluctantly. He needed more time to convince himself this alliance could work, and even more time to find the right words to convince his superiors, and nearly everyone at the Tower, that this House could be of enormous help; he had quite a status among the guardians and was well known for his merciless approach to the fallen race: but, how would they react if they would find out he had worked alongside them?

"What did the bald man say?" Asked Jaquimo, who sat on a crate and dangled his feet out of boredom, Holly sitting beside him.

The titan sighed deeply: "Not much: he just wanted to know where were we and why I hadn't replied to his transmission earlier..." He replied.

"And you justified ourselves telling him that...?" Asked Holly with a hint of worry.

"That we were on Venus because Jaquimo needed new samples of Vex cores and I was too busy pummeling them to reply." Said the Titan; rubbing the back of his neck; at his reply, the Hunter let out a sigh of relief.

"So you changed your mind about this truce between us and a House?" She asked full of hopes.

"I am still ready to add 'Archon' to the list of things I've killed." Snorted the titan. Holly and Jaquimo chuckled nervously.

"Speaking of which," added Sansone "How will you introduce it and the Kell to the Guardian's Council?".

Holly bit her lips and scratched the back of her neck: she was still thinking about it, trying to come up with the most pacific looking way to introduce Aliksis and Teriks to the Council.

"I'm still trying to come up with something..." She replied, looking up. The titan gave her a blank stare and sighed.

"If you bring them to the Tower they will most likely charge us of treason, you know it?" Asked Sansone crossing his arms.

"You mean they banish us as soon as we get to the Tower?" Asked back the warlock.

"Nah, they first restrain the two fallen, then ask you what the hell is going on and then lock you up with , they charge you of treason and banish you." Explained the exo.

His teammates exchanged a worried look at each other. The Guardian's Council was formed by the three Vanguard, Lord Shaxx, the three factions' leaders and nine guardians with high merits, one for each subclass; at the head of the assembly there was the Speaker, which has the last word on any matter: generally, his decisions get along with the others wishes, however, if he disagrees with them, his decision is the final one an must be respected.

Holly thought a moment, remaining silent and holding her chin.

"Jaqui, you return to the Tower." She said seriously. The warlock blinked surprised.

"What? Why?" He asked, his tone letting understand he found her decision unfair.

"You are the youngest of us: do you want to throw away your career because of a bad decision of mine?" Asked worried the hunter.

"But we are a team, girl! Beside it would be worst if you two, which are two old and experienced guardians, got banished!" He countered, jumping down from the crate.

"Do as the 'older guardian' says, half pint." Added the titan.

"You too, Sansone." Continued the woman "You have a status to defend."

"Sorry, but I'm not leaving you with a bunch of overgrown tarantulas."

"Go. I'll be a lawyer if they charge me of treason and you are one of the most influential guardians at the Tower." Said her, placing one hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, no! I'm following your ideas since yesterday; for once I'd like to do things my way!"

"Sans, Zavala has surely an eye on you, if they see you with me and a pack of still living fallen there will be no one to justify us," explained her calmly "They'll never listen to Jaqui! "

"She's right, tin man." Added the awoken, nudging his friend

The titan gave her a slightly worried look, sighing deeply.

"Alright... but, ring me up when you are coming to the City." He said, mimicking the headset of a telephone with his hand. Holly chuckled briefly and nodded to him.

"Don't worry Sans, we'll be alright." She reassured.

"Yeah! Just, try to not throw a party without us." Huffed sarcastic the titan.

Shortly after, Vaksir and Here's joined the trio.

"Are you ready to give Aliksis the good news?" Asked the captain, clapping together his upper pair of hands.

"Well, we decided to split up for now: I'm the only one coming back with you." Replied Holly.

"Why?" Asked Hereks suspicious.

"Because Sansone and Jaquimo have to psychologically prepare the Vanguard and everyone else to the meeting with your Kell." Explained her. Hereks was still skeptical.

"Yeah! They might flip some shit if they'd saw a fallen in human territory." Added the warlock. The two fallen exchanged a confused and slightly disgusted look at each other.

"They will throw feces in the air?!" asked shocked Vaksir.

The titan started laughing loudly, holding his forehead, the awoken blinking dumbstruck at the captain's question.

" It means that they could freak out: it's a colloquial expression." Explained Holly.

"...You humans have a strange tongue..." replied Hereks, slightly shaking his head.

"Well, we head back to the Tower now, don't do anything funny with Holly!" Said Jaquimo, pointing at the captain.

"How can we be sure you will not organize an attack against us?" Asked the baron.

"How can we be sure you won't use Holly to gain informations to infiltrate the Last City?" Asked back Sansone. The two stared at each other, eyes narrowed and aggressive stance. Vaksir cleaned his throat and gained his superior's attention.

" _Baron, with all due respect, but we have to start to have sine faith in these human, if we want this alliance to work._.." He observed meekly. "...And the guardians have to put some faith in us too." He continued, his words less meek and more intimidating as his gaze fell on the titan.

A short moment of silence passed, before Jaquimo summoned his Ghost with one hand.

"Alright, tin man! Let's go home!" He said, pointing at the sky. Sansone gave a last glare at the captain, pointing two fingers at his optics and then at him, before vanishing in a cloud of particles like Jaquimo, trans mattered back to orbit.

"So, is the skiff ready?" Asked Holly, turning toward the two fallen

* * *

After a short flight, the two guardians returned to the Tower, trans mattered by the central plaza by their Ghosts; the atmosphere was the usual like many other times: guardians who ran around the place from one wing to the other, getting everything ready for their next mission, vendors who cheerfully chatted with their costumers, the sound of guardian's curses when Rahool gave them ascendant shards after they gave him a legendary, heavy engram. It was like every day indeed.

"So, what are you going to do while we wait for Holly?" Asked Jaquimo.

"Writing the report of our last mission, omitting the entire 'spider thing', trying to come out with a good speech to promote this alliance and with a beat I made with Shaxx." Sansone replied, rubbing his faceplates tiredly. "And you?" He then asked.

"Oh, you know, usual stuff: training in the Crucible, burying myself in the tomes of the library learning about the great heroes of the Gap..." he said indifferent, tucking his hands in the pockets of his trousers and shrugging his shoulders.

"You are spending the evening locked up in your room playing some pre Golden Age virtual game, aren't you? " asked 'smirking' Sansone: if he had had eyebrows, one of them would have certainly be raised.

"Nah! What makes you suspect this?" Replied chuckling the awoken, walking away from the railing near which he and the titan had been materialized.

"Just remember that Ikora is having concentration exercises with the Praxic Order at eight sharp!" reminded him Sansone, cupping his hands like a megaphone. The warlock waved in acknowledgement and kept walking, as the titan headed to the Hall of the Guardians

* * *

Jaquimo made his way toward his quarters located by the mid-section of the Tower body, where most of the apartments assigned to the guardians were. He shared the flat with other three guardians, two hunters and another warlock, which now were all on duty, leaving the entire house just for him.

He quickly opened the door and slammed it back close before rushing toward his room, which was the study: it was full of junk, pre Golden Age crafts were scattered around the floor and on the shelves, silken codex and wax idols littered the room along with the House Banners that were messily folded on his bed.

He took off his robe and tossed it on the pillow, the 'bulletproof vest' followed and he remained with a black shirt with the words "Mastah race" printed in bright yellow. He rush sat down to the desk completely submerged by Ghost's shells pieces, rivets, electronic pieces and old, torn blueprints and addressed to his Ghost.

"Wisp! The Gate lord's eye, please!" He said, snapping his fingers, an anxious smile on his face.

"/Are you sure it's a good idea?/" asked slightly worried Wisp, materializing the spherical object in front of its guardian.

"Ohoho! Of course it is!" Replied excited him, grabbing a screwdriver like harness "This thing may hold the key to definitely destroy the Vex, I have to decode this thing as .Possible-" he continued, forcing open the red lent, still bright red: beneath the glass, little cybernetic terminals shimmered under the light of the lamp, with little ports located in the rear part of the bulb.

The warlock grabbed a cable and plugged it into the power delicately.

"Wisp, could you kindly plug this into your frame? I need a rapid way to translate the informations." He said, handing over the other end of the cable. The little Ghost gave a skeptical look at the eye, before glancing to its guardian's face, which bore the pleading expression of a child. It sighed and rolled its eye, before leaning toward the guardian's hand.

As soon as he plugged ta cable, a static discharge ran from the Ghost to Jaquimo's grand, making then both gasp in surprise and slight pain.

"Ouch-Sorry Wisp," he apologized, sucking his slightly burned finger "I'll use the data pad to download the codes...".

The warlock then rummaged through one of the piles of junk under the desk, placing on the table another cable and a data pad. He plugged one cable to link the eye and the pad, the other to link the pad to a power cell of the size of a night table to power booth devices up. The pad display lighted up and a cascade of numbers and codes filled it.

"And now we sit back and relax for about... six hours." Commented the awoken, looking at the alarm clock placed on a shelf. Or at least this was his plan, but Jaquimo was not able to stay with his hands in his pockets: after a couple of seconds of silence, he stood up with a grumble and buckled up his robe once again.

"/Rift?/" chirped excited Wisp.

"Rift!" Replied enthusiastic Jaquimo, slamming close the door of his room.

* * *

 

Sansone stepped into the Guardian's Hall, where his commander and the other Vanguards stood around a table, plotting the City's defenses.

"Look who's payin' us a visit!" Commented smirking Cayde, rising his optics from the map to the shirt stairway from which Sansone descended. He nodded to Ikora and the other exo, before stopping in front of Zavala and snapping a salute to him.

"At ease, Sansone 13-16." said the awoken calmly, tipping his head to the other titan. "I gave read your reports and there was a note saying you wanted to talk: what is it?"

Sansone cleaned his throat and started talking very calmly, despite not knowing the reaction his superior could have.

"Yes, commander... I was chatting with a fire team member, some time ago, and, they came up with the idea of...trying to find an ally outside the City's walls," he started slightly tilting his head to the sides as he talked.

"They thought the fallen could be a suitable asset in our war against the Darkness!" He continued, faking a laughter. "I told them they were just a bunch of bloodthirsty scavengers, but they insisted, so I asked myself: what if one day we'll find a group, or even a House, willing to help us?".

The titan's question made his commander frown slightly, his eyes blinking rapidly in confusion.

"It sounds like one of your hunters took your little tale too seriously, Cayde." Commented the awoken, turning toward the blue exo.

"But you have to admit this could be a great opportunity for us, Zavala." Commented Ikora, holding her chin and contemplating the possibility "We wouldn't only gain an ally but a valuable resource of informations!"

"Ikora is right, blue giant: they are part of the Darkness, and they could know things we don't about it!" Commented Cayde.

"Yeah, and maybe they want to ally with us to share informations in return of a safe place away from the coldness of this world full of Darkness! Come on! We all know what they are capable of!..." he paused a moment, looking firmly at his exo soldier "A fallen will have to save my life, before I could even start to ponder about speaking to them in a civil manner." He concluded coldly, tipping his head to dismiss Sansone.

The golden plated exo snapped another salute to all three Vanguards and walked back to the plaza: the three Vanguards talked to each others like he and his friends had talked earlyer.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter at the TTK's eve guys! Are you hyped? Ready to wear Oryx's butt as a Jackolyte? I hope you all will have fun tomorrow, while I patiently wait for the digital download to be available in the Bel Paese. Enjoy :)


	12. prepare for troubles

 

The skiff landed near the plaza, like first had brought the guardians to the city. The relatives of the soldiers milled around the landing zone to greet their loved.

_"Go ahead, captain, wait for me in front of the Great Hall:_  I  _have to inform these families about the fate of their loved."_  Said Hereks, walking toward the small group of Eliksni with his head slightly bowed, his deep voice masking his disappointed in not being able to keep his men safe.

Vaksir nodded to his superior and gestured Holly to follow him. The hunter saw the shocked and grieving faces of those people when the baron calmly spoke to them: they looked so human.

"I know how they feel..." murmured the Hunter, gripping her right biceps and lowering her head. The captain huffed confused and turned toward her, not being able to pick apart the muffled words.

"What?" He asked

"Nothing, I was just humming." She replied quickly, making her voice sound more carefree.

"Hope you were humming because you are happy: your idea of forming an alliance is one step closer to become a real thing!" He huffed happily, placing one hand to the hunter's shoulder and pulling her closer.

The guardian chucked briefly: yes, she was grateful to know that the fallen were willing to ally with her people, but she was unsure if the feeling was reciprocate

"Yeah, pretty much: we just have to hope the Council won't start another Twilight Gap with your House!" She replied, gritting her teeth nervously at the idea.

"You nervous?" Asked softly him.

"A lot." Replied her, gripping his hand placed on her shoulder.

"Remember, I am here for you." He said, placing also his lower hand on her arm. She looked up at him and smiled under her mask, as they both made their way toward the shrine where the Kell waited.

The captain did as his superior asked, waiting for him in front of the massive stone made door behind which Aliksis was; Holly nervously walked up and down in front of the entrance, arms crossed behind her back and gaze low, huffing and sighing, while Baskin exchanged, every now and then, a sporadic word with his sister.

Eventually, also Hereks caught up with the duo, the two guards snapping a salute to tipped his head to the two guards before turning toward the guardian. He said nothing, a smirk beneath his mask, and ordered the guards to open the door.

The other barons turned their gaze toward the trio, Aliksis standing from her throne and walking toward them, followed by Teriks.

"Welcome back, guardian." She greeted, the fingertips of her right hand touching the ones of her left hand like a leader pleased by the work of her men.

_"My Kell, the Gate has been destroyed, our settlement is safe._  "Said Hereks, kneeling before her with his head love.

_"Excellent work,_ my _baron."_  replied the Kell. Then, her gaze fell on the lone guardian.

"Where are the others?" Asked Teriks suspicious. The barons around them chattering about a possible explanation: some thought them dead, others about an ambush, others betrayal.

"They went to The Tower to set everything in order before your arrival." She explained, bowing slightly.

The Kell glanced at the barons around her and then at her bondmate, who all nodded, wanting to give a chance to the hunter's explanation.

"And when will we speak to you 'Kell' ?" Asked Aliksis, her metallic claws tapping against each other in anticipation.

"Even now!" Replied chuckling nervously Holly "But I would suggest you to send a spokesman firs: if they'd saw a Kell, an Archon or a group of barons being deployed by the Tower Plaza, it could be considered as an act of aggression." She explained, trying to convince the group of elder fallen.

"A spokesman?" Mumbled Aliksis, holding her chin thoughtfully "And, who should we send?"

Holly glanced quickly at the captain beside her. "I think Vaksir is the most indicated individual for this task." She said, "He knows English very well, he has a high rank but not high enough to alarm the Vanguards and he can travel aboard my ship." She explained, the captain quite flattered by her words.

"And your plan?" Asked Teriks.

The guardian remained silent a moment, tapping her breather piece with her fingers in a thoughtful manner.

"Vaksir and I travel to The Tower and ask for a consultation with the Council..."she started, walking up and down the room in front of the towering fallen. "We speak to its members, hoping they'll give you a chance, while you wait cloaked in orbit for an answer: if everything goes well, you come down and start to negotiate."

"And if they lure us into a trap? Asked one of the barons, crossing his arms.

Holly rubbed the back of her neck and huffed, her eyes wide: the Council members could give them the 'all clear' just to take them down with the city cannons.

"You could use one of my spare ships: I have a cargo like one which has enough room for you two." She suggested, turning toward the Kell and Archon. "You can travel with it without arouse suspicions."

Aliksis and Teriks quietly chatted to each other, considering the hunter's proposal.

"Very well: we will follow your plan," Agreed Aliksis, tipping her head to the human "We are putting our faith in your hands: do not betray our trust. " she added then, sitting down on her throne as she dismissed the duo with one gesture from her hand.

"I'll send the ship to pick you up as soon as possible." Concluded the guardian.

Vaksir and Holly bowed to the imposing fallen and then turned around, walking to the hangar where the hunter's ship was docked: Sparks had summoned it from orbit and now it was waiting for her guardian, under the curious gaze of the Eliksni.

"And your superiors assign you these kind of ships?" Asked speechless the captain, admiring the vessel that gracefully hovered above the ground.

"Not really: guardians acquire their ships by giving recovered blueprints to the shipwright or by finding them, some even build their own." Holly replied, walking her way under the ship's hull; there, she gestured Vaksir to follow her. He tilted his head to the side confused, but eventually followed her and stood beside her under the ship. A cloud of particles wrapped them and transferred the duo inside the cockpit: Vaksir looked around himself, quite fascinated by the aircraft control board, wondering if it worked like the one of a Skiff or had completely different schematics.

"You better buckle up Vaks." Suggested Holly, sitting down on the pilot seat and inserting the right sequence of buttons to make the ship move. The captain did as asked and in a matter of seconds, the ship was already re soaring the sky toward the Tower.

* * *

 

"Are you excited?" the hunter asked, turning toward her 'co-pilot'.

"I will probably be the first Eliksni of my house to see the Great Machine after centuries!" He replied with a faint chuckle, his words nervous but eager to get to the Tower.

"Aren't you scared the other guardians might see you as a threat?" Asked her again, her tone worried.

Vaksir smiled and placed one of his hands on the one of the human. "I know i'm in good hands with you." He replied softly, looking in the eyes of the woman.

She returned the smile and patted his hand with her other one, before Sparks materialized between them and interrupted the silence.

"/Call incoming! /" it chirped, shifting its shell pieces frenetically. It was Jaquimo who was calling, probably to check on his friend.

"/Hey, Holly! How did the things went with Aliksis?/" asked the warlock.

"Everything is good, Jaqui," she replied, "She and Teriks will catch up with us after the Council has decided this alliance is possible."

"/Then you will be the House of Knowledge spokeswoman?/" Asked again the awoken.

"Well, this is an alliance with an Eliksni House, so an Eliksni should talk." She replied, turning toward the captain who greeted the other guardian.

"/You brought Vaksir with you?! Don't you think that everyone at the Tower will want his head pinned above the Guardian's Hall entrance?/". The warlock's question made Vaksir gulp nervously, one hand stroking against his throat.

"I didn't think us guardians could be so bloodthirsty..." commented Holly.

"/Hey! There are some warlocks who pay thousands of glimmers for a well preserved corpse!/" Replied Jaquimo chuckling, leaving the duo dumbstruck. "/Anyway, I'll be at the plaza by the time of your arrival!/" he concluded, closing the communication channel.

The hunter saluted and closed the channel as well.

"The more I get to know your friends, the more I think they have a really strange sense of humor..."

"Believe me, there are some guardians who have a much more twisted humor." Replied her, maneuvering the ship through the clouds.

* * *

 

"You sure she was on her way here?" Asked Sansone, his eyes pointed toward the horizon.

"Don't worry, she'll be here in minutes." Replied Jaquimo, leaning against the balustrade. The titan let out a small sigh of concern.

"I just hope these folks here won't open fire against her." He huffed, pointing behind his shoulders at the group of guardians who roamed around the plaza: it was still crowded.

"If they do, place a bubble in front of her." Suggested the awoken.

"It doesn't protect you from a Nova Bomb." replied Sansone annoyed.

"That's why I run Void Walker in Crucible...Look! A ship's coming!" Noticed Jaquimo then, pointing at the sky.

The ship maneuvered close to the balcony and two figures were materialized near the docks: with much relief from the titan, one was his hunter friend, the other... a friend of his friend.

Vaksir looked around himself quite fascinated by the place: everything was so well kept, so tidy and 'modern' compared to what he had always been used to see.

However, his attention shifted to the crowd of guardians who, some with hatred, some with shock, stared at him in an unnatural silence.

"Fallen! I call dibs on the cloak!" Shouted a guardian, shaking one hand in the air while the other reached for her weapon strapped behind her back.

Her words unleashed a frenzy among the crowd of warriors, defiant cries of excitement raised from it as everyone ran toward the poor captain who stood there wide eyed. Holly grabbed one of his hands and ran with him toward the Speaker's observatory: the usage of powers and weapons was strictly prohibited within the City perimeter, excluding situations of emergency, but bringing a weapon inside the Speaker's study was considered an act of aggression toward the masked figure and would result in very serious consequences.

It was the only place where Vaksir could be somewhat 'safe' without guardians shooting at him.

"Told you something would go wrong!" Grumbled Sansone, running through the crowd and pushing guardians aside violently.

"Just keep running and hope a vacant bullet doesn't kill someone!" Replied Jaquimo rolling his eyes, trying to keep up with the titan's speed to avoid being thrown around by the crowd.

The hunter made it to the northern tower, where the circular observatory was only to find its doors completely sealed generally, the Speaker left windows and entrances to his study open, so that everyone who sought advices could come freely, but now, nobody could enter nor exit. He usually did this when he wanted to meditate, to stay alone to better understand the Traveler's voice.

The captain and the hinter were cornered against the door pf the observatory, a crowd of guardians around them included the exo and the awoken: one hurled people aside to make his way toward the crowd edge; the other following behind.

Holly tried to calm everyone down, explaining what was going on, but everyone in front of her was more interested in where to hang the captain's helm as a trophy.

Three loud bangs were heard coming from the bottom of the crowd, everyone's gaze falling toward the three figures who walked through the bellicose guardians toward the duo.

Zavala was at the head of the trio, back straight, arms behind his back and eyes narrowed.

"What is this fallen doing here, guardian?!" He growled, trying to hold back the anger.

Holly nervously rubbed her hands together in small circle, her eyes low.

"H-he is here to..." her last words were whispered quietly.

"Came on, hunter: talk." said calmly Ikora, crossing her arms on her chest.

"He is here to talk to the Council..." she said once again, rising her voice slightly.

The three elites looked at each other confused and stupefied, a quiet chatter rising from the crowd.

"Alright folks! There is nothing to see here, so, get your assistance on the field!" Said Clyde, waving his hands around to dispatch the crowd who grumbled disappointed; Jaquimo and Sansone watched from afar as the Vanguards resumed their talk with their friend, along with a small group of curious guardians.

"Do you know that by bringing a fallen here you put everyone in danger?!"Asked stiffed the commander, his fists clenched tightly.

"H-he isn't a spy! His House would like to ally with us against the Darkness-"

"We'll talk about this nonsense later: for now, the fallen gets restrained!" Ordered the awoken titan: he tipped his head toward the alien and two nearby titans stepped forward.

Vaksir snarled lowly as the two guardians gripped his arms: he tried to wriggle out of their grasps, but they tightened it to prevent him to move any further. He glanced at the hunter and saw her face pale like the shell of a Ghost, gesturing him to stay calm; he took a deep breath and stopped moving, allowing the two titans to drag him away.

"Don't kill him yet: he could have useful informations." Whispered Zavala to one of his men, placing one hand on his shoulder before he nodded and walked away with the hostage.

"Please, come with us hunter." Said the warlock Vanguard, turning around and walking away, Zavala following het with his eyes narrowed; Cayde sighed and shook his head at Holly, disappointed and worried at the same time. She lowered her head and followed the trio.

"You stay here, I'll go and see if I can do something to get her outta this mess." Said Sansone, jogging down the way to catch up with the group, leaving Jaquimo behind.

The awoken sighed and nodded, remaining where he stood, worried for his friends.

 

 

 


	15. oh, bearer mine

Sasone couldn't believe his eyes: he had seen so many impossible things and places since his revival and he nothing could leave him speechless. Or freeze him in place by the fear.

Few guardians had had the luck to see one, few fought one and even fewer lived to tell about their encounter.

Before the titan stood an Ahamkara, a legendary creature with unimaginable power the guardians had hunt to extinction. Or so was thought.

The creature had a mystical aura around itself, it looked nearly ethereal at the eyes of the guardian, intangible but at the same time massive and strong. Its body was slender, with a long and sinuous neck and tail; its entire body was covered by thick scaly plates but the wings, covered in fathers that looked so sharp to be able to cut through metal. Its head was adorned by horns, its snout long, conical and its mouth was full of rows of sharp and hugged fangs. But the most hypnotic feature about the creature were its eyes: four piecing pupils that stared into the void, concealing endless secrets that could terrorize and turn crazy the most resolved of the guardians.

The titan instinctively grabbed his rifle and aimed it toward the creature, the weapon slightly shaking in his hands; the Ahamkara hissed and showed it's fang in a devious smile.

"Welcome, oh bearer of Light" It asked without moving its jaws, its voice a deep whisper.

Sansone dropped on his knees and held his head with both hands tightly, a grunt of pain coming from his figure: he couldn't bear the sound of the creature's voice, the words felt as if they had forcefully crawled their way into his mind, without passing from the ear, and it felt horrible to the titan. It felt like someone was crushing his mind.

"Ssstrange, a bearer like you who can't ssstand the voice of wisdom and wishes, " it hissed and sinuously and silently walked around the guardian, who had bent over his knees, his fingers digging into his helm "Perhaps your Light is not sstrong enough? " it asked placing his head a few centimeters from the titans one.

Sansone looked up and met his gaze with the gaze with the hypnotic one of the creature. He struggled to get himself on his feet, stumbling a couple of times, but eventually was able to stand at full height in front of the creature. Which wasn't much, considering the size of the Ahamkara.

"What... What do you want?!" He asked, regretting it after the words of the creature pierced their way inside his mind once again.

"Oh, Light bearer, I want nothing from you!" It replied, hovering his head side to side "But maybe you want sssomething from me." It whispered again.

"Me? I want but nothing to do with you!" He replied defiantly "We had to hunt you to extinction because you were a threat! You promised things to guardians, revealed things that sent us crazy! ".

The Ahamkara hinted a smile on its features "You are sscared," it stated, circling around the titan with great grace "You do not comprehend our nature, like many guardiansss before you, thisss is why we were hunt down: because our answers scared you."

"I'm not scared!" Shouted Sansone, trying to fight the pain he felt inside his metal skull "I'm one of the oldest guardians around! Not even the Darkness can make me flinch!"

"The Darkness which scares you" It continued "Your warlock friend, is scared of it because he comprehend it too much, the hunter, she's scared of it because she was wrapped in in for decades..." the Ahamkara pauses a moment, narrowing its four eyes at the titan.

"But you... you are scared of it because others told you to be so," it added, the grip around Sansone's mind getting tighter at each word "They told you to fight and you followed the order without hesitation!"

"I-it is-my duty to ensure humanity's survival-" tried to explain him, tossing his helm aside in attempt to ease the weight.

"Yes, it is your duty, it is every guardian's duty" it continued "The difference is, some of them ask themselves why: maybe they don't search the answer, but at least they ask this question...While you, you don't bother yourself to understand, you blindly follow the orders that are given you, because you are too scared to ask, you are scared to comprehend, you execute, like the empty machine you are!"

"I'M NOT SCARED!" Cried the titan, leaping into the air to strike a blow to the Ahamkara's snout.

The creature opened a fifth eye, at the center of his forehead and blocked the guardian, holding it at midair unable to move. Sansone started panicking, he struggled and tried to flail his arms and legs, but it was useless. He was trapped.

"Your aggressive temperament comes from fear, and your fear comes from ignorance" whispered calmly the creature "Your wish, is to comprehend."

Sansone lowered his gaze: he was scared, he knew it, nobody ever bothered to tell him what was happening, aside from "the Darkness is attacking", and he had no time to figure it out by himself; or so he thought.

"...Then enlighten me..." he murmured, without looking at the creature "Make me understand, if this will help me against the Darkness". He heard what the Ahamkaras were capable of doing, but now he could not care less: he was willing to do anything to protect the Last City, and if "comprehending" the Darkness was the only way, he would do so.

The Ahamkara smiled deviously "Then, let's commence, oh Light bearer..."

Sansone never felt so much pain curse through his body.

* * *

 

Jaquimo kept falling, his robe fluttering in the wind; he looked around himself in agitation: around himself, there was only darkness, pierced by the lost Ghosts that appeared and vanished, leaving behind only their blue particles.

"Er, Wisp? Do you know of this pit is endless or do I have to find it out by myself? "Asked the warlock rather sarcastically. The Ghost appeared near his face, shifting its shell pieces in circles.

"/So, according to my scans and by keeping in count your mass and velocity, you should reach the bottom in-" the Ghosts speech was interrupted by an hollow thud and a sound of something soft bashing against the rocks of the pit bottom "/...Now.../" it sighed, rolling its lent. The force of the impact transformed the warlock's body into a red and shapeless mesh of organs and shattered bones scattered in a fairly large area around the guardian's corpse.

Two flaming wings erupted from Jaquimo's back as he stood up on his feet and stretched his arms and neck.

"Traveller dammit, Wisp! Next time tell me when I'm dead! "He grumbled, massaging his stomach.

"/Sorry dear. /" apologized it.

The young awoken looked around himself: everything around him was completely pitch black, it was hard to see the rocks on the floor even if his body was covered in flames, acting like a torch.

"Looks like we've reached the bottom," he commented, uncomfortable of the odd feeling of emptiness around himself "Can you still track the source?" He asked then, the flames around his body vanishing.

"/We must be near, the signal is really strong down there. But I can't determinate the way from where the signal comes. /" replied the Ghost, hovering slightly back and forth.

"So I have to wander around the bottom of this pit until I don't find a room or something?" Asked him. The little machine nodded discouraged.

Jaquimo sighed loudly and summoned a solar grenade in his hand, to light the way.

"I'm glad these boots are comfortable then..." he sighed, as he ventured into the darkness.

* * *

 

The three survivors had found shelter in a little narrowing by one of the corridors, deciding to rest for a couple of hours before going anywhere. Nobody was seriously injured aside from some burns left by the plasma bolts on the arms or legs that were treated with a bandage, to keep the wounds clean and quicken the healing process. But there were wounds that could not be healed, like Hereks pride.

The elder had earned his rank thanks to his sense of leadership and combat abilities, he had always completed his missions successfully and without any doubt; but after seeing what happened earlier, he was starting to ask himself if he would have survived this time, thou he would prefer to die there by the cold hands of a Vex instead of showing his face again to his House. He could not accept the defeat.

So he sat curled up in a corner, turning his back to the other two individuals who were in a similar emotional situation.

Holly sat across from the baron and the captain, leaned with her forehead against a wall, overthinking about her mistakes and thinking about her two friends who were nowhere to be found or heard. She sighed deeply and slightly thumped her forehead against the wall rhythmically.

Vaksir data the center of the small room, between the two individuals, and harnessed with his shrapnel launcher; he stopped his examination to look to his companions: one laid curled up in a corner, wrapped in his cloak and tormented by his wounded ego, not wanting anyone to disturb him; the other bashed her head against a wall.

He sighed and stood up, walking toward the guardian: he sat down behind her and placed his upper hands on her shoulders, gently pulling her away from the wall.

"You will get a migraine if you continue bashing your head." he said, in attempt to ease her mood.

"It's far better than having a caliber 50 bullet in your head, believe me..." She replied apathetically

The captain looked at her for a moment, trying to come up with something to cheer her up. He wrapped his set of upper arms around her and rested his head on hers, causing her to shift slightly in surprise.

"What are you doing?" asked her with a faint chuckle.

"I am expressing a form of empathy and affection known by your people by the term 'hug'." he replied huffing softly.

The hunter smiled briefly, but let out a sigh of melancholy after a moment.

"Do you think they are alright?" Asked her then.

"Well, you guardians are formidable opponents, you can come back to life if you die, there are good chances they are alright." Replied Vaksir, trying to reassure her. The truth? He wasn't sure about them: he didn't care about the titan, that robot had been a thorn in the side since the beginning, he thought not even the Darkness would have wanted him; the warlock, well, he was starting to be likeable, such a shame he fell in a bottomless pit with no probability of survival. Obviously, the captain couldn't tell this to his friend, he was a monster in appearance, not in actions and words.

"So, what is your plan?" Asked him then.

"My previous 'plan', brought us here, remember?" Replied drily her.

"And your next one will bring us out." said him, adjusting her hood with his free hands.

"What does the baron says? Does he wishes to continue or wants to go back?" She asked, tipping her head toward the elder fallen.

"The baron wishes his captain to stop purring like a baby and ready his weapons instead! "Growled Hereks, throwing the captain's shrapnel launcher at his owner.

Vaksir grunted in surprise and caught the weapon before it could smack against his face; Hereks stared at his subordinate in a blank way as he and the guardian stood up, before talking to her.

"Can you return to the ravine?" Asked him.

"Well, yes, but we'll have to pay attention to the Vex units, they are probably looking for us." She replied, her Ghost materializing near her shoulder.

"Can you vanish?" asked then him.

"You mean become invisible? Yes, but you must give me a couple of minutes to prepare myself." Replied her.

The baron nodded and turned toward the captain:

"Is your stealth drive still functioning?"

* * *

 

Jaquimo walked and walked, using his grenades to light the way; but the darkness was too thick, the solar power of the bombs was too weak to breach the darkness veil. As he walked, his boots splashed against some the no liquid, making him lower his gaze to his feet: it was the pool of blood he left earlier, and the one he stepped into countless times before. He walking in circles.

Frustrated, he threw the grenade he held as far as he could and sat down, the red of his robe mixing with the one of the blood.

"I'm fucking stuck down here!" He shouted, bringing his hands on top of his helmet as he wanted to rip off his hairs.

"/We'll find a way, dear, you'll see.../" tried to reassure him his Ghost.

"How? You can't locate the portal and I can't keep walking around like a headless chicken!" He replied "Nobody's gonna rescue us, we are going to get slowly consumed by the Darkness and vanish in this pit-" his line was interrupted by a faint flicker caught by the fringe of his eyes.

The warlock turned toward the little light: it was one of the lost Ghosts from before; other blue sparks appeared, vanishing and reappearing closer to the guardian until he wasn't surrounded by hundreds of Ghosts, like little phantoms. Jaquimo and Wisp stared at them and they stared back, until the all didn't vanish and reappeared in line about ten meters ahead from them, hovering there silent.

The guardian observed them a moment, before standing up and walking toward them. He stretched out one arm to touch them, but they vanished and reappeared ahead of him again. They wanted to be followed.

"/ You were saying, about nobody rescuing us?/" Asked sarcastic the Ghost.

Jaquimo hushed her annoyed and started following the trail of Ghost, as they were fireflies.

 

 


End file.
